Hillary appeared on Konflikt (Conflict), Swedish Radio’s in-depth foreign affairs program, to talk about her experience as an American diplomat negotiating with Iranian counterparts over Afghanistan and how that experience informs her current views about U.S. and Iranian strategies in the Middle East today. You can listen to the interview, which is in English after a very brief introduction in Swedish, by clicking: here.
–Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
Unknown Unknows,
Apparently you do not read the Financial Times. It offers extensive commentary on the technical issues you mention. What English-;anguage newspaper with global distribution does better, in your view?
Unknown Unknowns,
Are you arguing that Saudi Arabia does not have a policy of trying to put Saudis into technical, administrative etc jobs in oil and gas arena?
Sassan,
It is in Israel’s own best interests to end the occupation of the West Bank and Golan Heights. Those who urge Israel to act in its own best interests are not “anti-Semitic”.
Sassan,
Even Tom Friedman of the New York Times says AIPAC virtually “owns” the US Congress.
Sassan,
All Arab countries agree to accept Israel within its 1967 borders. Israel’s difficulties with its neighbors are largely of Israel’s own making.
Agent Sassanette says, “how long more”
How long more??
Silly boy.
fyi:
I too am hoping that the legislation designed to cut of oil supplies to Europe immediately, to show them that unbridled militarism has unwanted consequences for *both* sides… But I am concerned that the legislation contains language that would cut off all imports from the whole of Europe, including Germany. I think this will have a highly adverse affect on the Iranian economy as it now stands, as well as to its potential for future expansion, as planned. It will be interesting to see if the supervisory authority, the Guardian Council, will have the wisdom to see this and to make an exception, or to give the executive some leeway. Of course that body’s mandate is (strictly?) limited to ensuring the compliance of legislation with Islamic law, so maybe the Expediency Council will have to step in, in this instance. Of course, this might be a mute point as it is likely that the cutting off of oil without notice would raise the ire of the Europoodles to where they would stop *all* exports to Iran.
Bottom line: all one has to do is read history to understand the end is near for this terrorist despotic and tyrannical regime. The question is not “if” this regime will go – but rather, “how long more” and “how much more blood” will be shed for that freedom and liberation.
Jay: It makes absolutely no sense in rational discussions when people automatically bring up Israel every time the issue of Iran’s atrocious human rights record is brought up. That was my point.
In regards to Christopher Hitchens – he simply thought men were more funny that women. That is not a sexist position but rather simply based on his observations and experience. It does not mean I share that view but to claim he is sexist because of that is a non sequitar.
As for Mother Teresa being a fanatical fundamentalist: ABSOLUTELY she was. She was against contraceptives, birth control, and divorce and called such practices “the greatest destroyer of peace”. While people like to saint her as someone who was “great for humanity”, she brought forth more suffering, oppression, and illiteracy in standing in the way of the empowerment of women.
James Canning: The only people who do their “best” to prevent the normal relations of Iran with any member of the international community who values civility and humanity is the Islamic Republic itself with its global jihad objectives and terror policies. And no, Israel does not control the U.S. Congress. Having a relationship with Israel is in the national security interests and values of the United States. Israel is the only democracy in a region of despots and tyrants and the U.S. must stand with Israel when Israel faces a barrage of people bordering them who ultimately wants to eradicate the entire nation of Israel.
Saying this – Israel is not perfect and has many faults; but the being pro-Islamic Republic by many westerners on this message board tends to be from an anti-Semitism or “Zionism” angle.
fyi says:
The Guardian Council does not have the authority to define what is right or wrong.
That determination is a moral choice that each individual has to make based on their own conscience.
Mr. Khamenei does not have the spiritual authority to do so either.
Mr. Khomeini, a unique man in a thousand year of Muslim history, had both the temporal authority and the spiritual authority to make that determination.
But Mr. Khoemini’s authority was by acclamation and so was his temporal authority.
*
The authority of the Guardian Council and of Imam Khamenei, which is both spiritual and temporal, is vested in them by the constitution of the Islamic Republic, which itself was ushered in by Imam Khomeini, who acted as usher and catalyst. The system or new Islamic paradigm that he ushered (and which was voted in by 99% of the Iranian populace) never for a minute envisioned that it was Imam Khomeini that had that spirituo-temporal authority. It is not a system of Velayat-e Khomeini. It is a system of Velayat-e Faqih, one of whom was elected to succeed the late Imam. You personally might believe that Imam Khamenei “is not qualified” or some such expletive based on old-paradigm thinking. But the reality is what it is.
And by the way, if you stop to consider what you suggest as the alternative:
“That determination is a moral choice that each individual has to make based on their own conscience.”
you will realize that this cannot be a recipe for running a country and society. Are you serious? If someone disagrees with the will of the majority as legislated in its congress, that they are then free to make their individual choice, based on what their conscience tells them? That is absurd. It is a recipe for anarchy.
Now of course, if someone’s conscience does not allow him to follow a law that has been passed by the duly elected majority and ratified by “experts”, then that is up to him or her to demur from obeying that law. And rightly so. But that in no way invalidates the law or the legitimacy of the system of governance.
If I may be so bold as to opine: the fact that you have made such a gross error of judgement regarding this issue is symptomatic of a personality which is politically on the margins of society and alienated from it. No one who was actually engaged in the political economy of a nation could ever make that erroneous statement. Like I have stated to Richard in the past, [holding to the political theory of] anarchy is a symptom of alienation and marginalization from society. If you prayed in commune on a daily basis, if you interacted with your imam and the imam of the people of the neighborhood in which you lived as often as you felt the need, if you made the communal Friday prayers, and broke fast with everyone in your community, saying such things would be unthinkable.
But like I said, from what I have been able to glean from your positions, you are not a Moslem (in the sense that you are completely cut off from the Moslem community and its daily workings, and not least, in its belief in the validity and legitimacy of the Constitution in all its full-blown glory), but a Christian who has a degree of respect for the religion of Islam. In any case, that is my take, which I offer sincerely to someone who is in denial of this.
Kevin Barrett, that indefatigable Moslem on a jihad for 9/11 truth, is at it again. This posting of his email (below) gives me the opportunity to state in no uncertain terms my disgust at that mass-murdering idolizing movement, the National Socialists of Germany or the Nazis, which represented the nadir of psychological and spiritual illness of the (otherwise) great German nation – a sickness which they have yet to recover from, and are being prevented from doing so by their very own ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government). I feel the need to make this clarification because of my past posts which spoke of an alternative version of historical events relating to the so-called “holocaust”. The 6 million figure will become patently absurd for anyone who spend a brief period of time researching the subject (first stop for those interested is the Institute for Historical Research website), but that is not to say that the Nazis did not do some very, very sick things to Jews, which was sanctioned at the highest level. Even the treacherous Jew – of which there were many, and whose large number to some extent brought on these atrocities – deserved to be treated with the minimal standards of humane treatment of prisoners.
Anyway, here’s the body of Kevin’s email:
Hello, America. Are you feeling okay?!
* Your economy’s crippled.
* Your Constitution is shredded.
* You’re still bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on the brink of war with Iran (and maybe Russia and China…)
What’s gone wrong with this country?
The short answer: “It’s the neocons, stupid!”
As Ralph Nader put it a few days ago: “The same neocons who persuaded George W. Bush and crew to ‘lie their way into invading Iraq’ in 2003, are beating the drums of war more loudly these days to attack Iran.”
Endless war has destroyed the economy and the Constitution.
And who’s behind this endless war?
The neoconservative movement in the USA parallels the Nazi movement in 1930s Germany:
*Both movements are rooted in the “philosophy of enmity” of Carl Schmitt, and seek ENDLESS WAR.
*Both movements use the “Big Lie” and cutting-edge media and technology to brainwash the masses.
*Both movements love war, hate peace, and hate the “inferior people” who want peace.
*Both movements have no use for constitutions, the rule of law, or democracy.
*Both movements are fanatical supporters of ethnic cleansing.
*Both movements used the destruction of an architectural monument to seize power and overthrow a democratic republic.
*Both movements took over a great country and quickly destroyed it.
If you were a citizen of Germany in the 1930s, you had a moral duty to stop them.
If you are a citizen of the USA today, you have a moral duty to stop them.
Unknown Unknowns says: January 28, 2012 at 10:23 pm
The Guardian Council does not have the authority to define what is right or wrong.
That determination is a moral choice that each individual has to make based on their own conscience.
Mr. Khamebei does not have the spiritual authority to do so either.
Mr. Khomeini, a unique man in a thousand year of Muslim history, had both the temporal authority and the spiritual authrouty to make that determination.
But Mr. Khoemini’s authority was by acclaimation and so was his temporal authority.
Unknown Unknowns says: January 28, 2012 at 10:09 pm
You are, of course, correct in your assesment.
The United States has been successful, over the last 30 yers, in preventinbg Iran from realizing her projects that would have made her an industrial country.
US has her show-case satrapies; Korea and Japan but outside core NATO states there is no sustainable industrialization.
What Iran has achieved in industrialization has been in spite of US and EU, with technology transfers from Russia as well as China.
But mostly, Iranians had to re-invent very many things by themselves.
There is no other Muslim state that has that capability.
Jay says, “The fact that small minds are incapable of understanding the world beyond dichotomous constructions speaks to the capacity of the mind and not the simplicity of the issue.”
A well-crafted sentence. Bravo.
*
fyi says:
January 28, 2012 at 2:58 pm
Majority could be Wrong, as the Quran explicitly states.
True. But that’s why we have, in the Islamic Republic, the Guardian Council supervising that majority, and the Expediency Council above that body, and of course, there is always the possibility that the Supreme Leader might decide to exercise his authority based on the vision afforded him by his lofty perch, and over-rule that authority of penultimate resort.
Go on then, I’m interested to see how you weasel out of that one. This is a test case. Either the medication will have proven its efficacy, or it might be time for stronger medicine. Like Thorazine.
James Canning says, “Where does your notion of “rape of the sand-niggers” fit into this scheme?”
I’m pretty sure everyone else who read teh post got the picture. But, seeing as you ask, it has to do with the difference between working with a nation who wants to master all the technologies of the development and extraction process in a mutually beneficial way, or ensuring a pliant vassal authority which will give you the unfettered access you want irrespective of the national interests of the host country which the parasite is leeching.
My secondary point on a deeper level was that this sort of analysis, of the technological mastery development index, if you will, is never broached in any discussions on the subject of oil in papers which you read such as the Financial Times or the oh-so-Liberal Guardian and is only discussed by countries such as Iran and Venezuela. So maybe that’s why you didn’t get it, my liege?
God Save the Queen.
R S Hack,
Iraq destroyed much of its WMD soon after the Gulf War.
The CIA had ample evidence Iraq had destroyed its WMD. Dick Cheney and his gang took pains to keep this intelligence out of the White House.
I have said many times there was a conspiracy to set up an illegal war using knowingly false intelligence. This is “blaming the victim”?
Saddam Hussein in fact was badly educated and obviously incompetent to direct a coherent response to the torrent of lies being put out by warmongering neocons, other fantatical supporters of Israel right or wrong, etc etc etc. The day after Colin Powell put on his song and dance routine at the UN, Saddam should have had a press conference demolishing the lies Powell was duped into providing the General Assembly.
Scott Lucas is really acting childish.
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
2005 GMT: Oil Watch. The Guardian Council has expressed its willingness to endorse Parliamentary legislation cutting off Iranian oil exports to Europe as a pre-emptive strike against the European Union’s suspension of imports of Iranian oil from 1 July.
“We cannot express our view before seeing the Parliament’s legislation on a possible oil ban [on Europe], however; the Guardian Council will ratify any legislation that could help protect Iran’s national interests,” Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
TELL ME NO LIES
State Of The Union Addresses Past: A Look Back At A History Of Forgotten Promises
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/state-of-the-union-addres_n_1235696.html
Scott Lucas says: January 28, 2012 at 3:32 pm
A step in the right dirction.
I personally hope for the passage of the bill tomorrow and its speedy implementation.
Once could only hope.
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
2005 GMT: Oil Watch. The head of the National Iranian Oil Company has raised the prospect of a specific counter-attack to the European Union’s suspension of imports of Iranian oil from 1 July.
Ahmad Qalebani said Iran may enforce “buyback contracts”, under which Iran pays back investments in its oilfields in supplies of crude.
For example, Italian oil company ENI is owed about $1.5 billion in oil for its contracts in Iran dating from 2000 and 2001. While ENI has been assured by the European Union that its contracts will not be part of the European sanctions, Iran could withdraw supplies to punish Italy, one of the biggest European importers of Iranian oil.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
Fiorangela at 9.06 am
Thanks
Unknown Unknowns says: January 28, 2012 at 6:05 am
Majority could be Wrong, as the Quran explicitly states.
Sassan says:
January 28, 2012 at 1:15 pm
When Iran is criticized for abusing women and atrocious lack of respect for their rights, many apologists will bring up the subject of Israel.
The fact that small minds are incapable of understanding the world beyond dichotomous constructions speaks to the capacity of the mind and not the simplicity of the issue.
Practical translation for you:
Criticizing Israel, US, or any other country is not the same as giving Iran, SA, UK or any other place a free pass, but that is difficult to understand for some people.
Chris Hitchens, like anyone else, is interesting to listen to and analyze – but not idolize!! Speaking about being a bigot – Mr. Hitchens found men to be funnier than women across the board and he found Mother Teresa to be a fanatic fundamentalist. I suppose you agree with those views as well.
Sassan,
Do you dispute the fact Aipac “owns” the US Congress? Or that “supporters” of Israel do their best to prevent normal relations between the US and Iran?
Re “banning”,
Y’all, he is achieving what he is after: the derailment of discussions of real issues.
Consider that.
R S Hack,
Leon Panetta does not want war with Iran. That the Pentagon would seek even better conventional “bunker busters”, in a hurry, is no surprise but does not mean US generals want war with Iran.
Unknown Unknowns,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oil_Corporation
This should give you some grounding in how Libya nationalised the oil companies operating in Libya, and then made deals with various oil companies in European and other counries.
kooshy, that’s a good idea. Do you have a name for it — IDF & US military like to put kewl names on their “operations” — guess it makes them feel like one o’ the gang.
How about Operation Lucust?
Sakineh Bagoom, What a pleasant world to have grown up in.
Namaste
Fiorangela says:
January 28, 2012 at 12:49 pm
If ask my idea about Lucas spam, the answer simply is to give him a “Ghasas” meaning do to him what he is doing to you, in other word one or two commenters ( so the increased rate of hits is limited to one or two IP’s only) should post comments on US and Israeli policies that his founders get shivered with it like what Fior post on Zionist matters or Rich’s ( if he can control his temper a bit so he can’t ban him on slender if he is not already banned) linked comments on knocking down western propagandized analysis. Let him discredit himself once more by banning you not the other way around.
Fiorangela,
Bravo again. And yes, when the focus of attention is on Israel’s insane ethnic cleasing programme, even for a few minutes, every effort is made to change the subject to Iran.
Unknown Unknowns,
Libya had (and has) large investments in a number of companies based in various European countries, that did (and do) business in Libya. Where does your notion of “rape of the sand-niggers” fit into this scheme?
When Israel is criticized for abusing peaceful protesters, both Jewish and Arab, and for atrocious lack of respect for Palestinian rights, many apologists will bring up the subject of Iran.
Haggai Ram discusses this subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Iranophobia-Israeli-Obsession-Stanford-Studies/dp/0804760683/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327775960&sr=1-1
Unknown Unknowns,
The Gaddafi government had indeed entered into contracts for oil and gas development, transport, sale etc with numberous companies from many countries. Those contracts were favorable to Libya, and they are being honoured by the current government.
Russia does have concerns that a cotract for arms sales to Libya will not be honoured.
RSH,
Re, “Site Leech”, “Link Leech”: I think he should be allowed to post here as the Leverett’s have decided no banning of any speech regardless of how underhanded/smarmy it my be. Everyone here knows why he is here. He says Pirouz and Kooshy are not even close as to why he is posting here, but we all know the undermining/scheming agenda that goes along with his posts. He never sees anything positive about Iran and is always wishing her demise. You are correct in calling BS, BS though.
Fio,
Your tally stick story spurred a fond memory of my childhood. We used a tally stick in purchases of bread and other products from the local grocers and bakers. It worked something like this: you take your stick to the baker and purchase two loaves (pieces really) of bread. The baker would then use his knife to make two notches on the stick. At the end of the month or a given period of time you’d pay for the notches made on the stick and the baker would keep the stick and issue you a new one.
Thanks for the memories!
Fiorangela,
Bravo, to you and to Philip Weiss. The entire US Congress should be obliged to provide individual written comments on this situation. “Jews” from Latvia can build houses in the West Bank, but often this right is denied to Palestinians.
WTF says:
January 28, 2012 at 12:31 pm
I personally agree with the first part of your post but I strongly disagree with second part where you recommend a filter for the exact same reasons you mentioned on the first part of your comment, as I have commented before I don’t care and read his garbage due to the established fact he has a task driven agenda, but after all if we are here and allowed to post whatever we wish to post, this should be equally available to everyone including spammers like Scott Lucas who is freely using this site to promote his site ,which accepts paid advertising presumably for commercial purposes. After all, why we should feel ashamed for Lucas’s desperate incompetence acts promoting his commercial site by way of freely using a non-commercial policy advocacy site like RFI. He eventually will get tired or he will naturally give it up when Iran parliamentary elections and the revolution anniversary are over in few weeks. The current sanctioned task assigned to him will be over once these two events are passed. I am sure he and the co. will be back once they are assigned with a new order.
When Iran is criticized for abusing women and atrocious lack of respect for their rights, many apologists will bring up the subject of Israel.
Christopher Hitchens discusses this subject:
http://youtu.be/J8UEVoSJmfs
~~~~ These images are heartbreaking but the world has to see it [sic] ~~~~
Israeli soldiers drive tractor over worker’s legs to stop Palestinians from building a house on their own, Occupied, Lands
Unknown Unknowns says:
January 27, 2012 at 1:45 am
RE: Wilbur
Although you seem to be the most congenial of the bunch who holds a view contrary to the norm on this site, I still do not believe there is any possibility of holding a fruitful discussion with you, because you are entrenched in your views…
I unfortunately have to agree about Wilbur. I have tried (along with Eric) to give him a chance and engage him in a meaningful debate, but although he seems somewhat sincere, he always drops off the face of the earth when asked to back up any of his claims.
Wilbur, if you care to prove me wrong, I have been waiting for several months for you to “sift through the mounds of evidence” and back up your repeated claims that the 2009 election was fraudulent. It would be perfectly acceptable (and would show that you have some integrity) to admit that you were mistaken, if you cannot put forth any evidence to back up your claims.
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/301975_232958106753733_100001186352423_605721_201309912_n.jpg
~~~~These images are heartbreaking but the world has to see it~~~~
“Alireza (17 years old) has reportedly been crying out for mercy before the execution and wanted to see his mother”
Unknown Unknowns says:
January 28, 2012 at 11:22 am
excellent suggestions
here’s a fourth — on another blog that shall remain nameless, trolls are responded to with favorite recipes. How many ways can you prepare LucaSpam© —
LucaSpam© kabob?
LucaSpam© fesenjan?
Options now on the table:
-YES I object to Lucas’s spamming on RFI and would like to see him banned
-NO Free speech and open dialogue should be absolute
-”Richard needs to give Scotty Boy a spanking”.
-LucaSpam © recipe bombs
“Richard needs to give Scotty Boy a spanking”.
If it wasn’t clear from my last post, something has to be done to not allow Lucas to derail this entire board. He has posted 33 links to his site on this thread alone. At the very least we need to have a personal filtering option. Between Lucas, Sassan and Canning, I am having to scroll through more posts on this site than I actually stop to read. I am 100% for diverse discussion promoting opposing (even some idiotic) views, but this has gotten out of hand.
To all –
RE: Banning Lucas
I would strongly recommend against this for two reasons. The first is that the more dipshits like Lucas and Sassan repeat their dribble, the easier it becomes for an objective observer to see that they have ulterior motives. As others have stated, the fact that Lucas is opaque regarding his true intentions (both of the content of his posts and more recently the “really cool” secret rationale for the quantity of posts), makes most sensible people disregard the posts in their entirety.
However, the main reason not to outright ban Lucas, is that it could be used as a coup by antagonists of the Leveretts (and this site) to claim that this open discussion is not as unfiltered as they claim. Think about how powerful UU’s attacks on Lucas for banning Reza Esfandiari have been. It would be a shame for the Leveretts to open themselves up to similar attacks.
I would recommend finding another way to do away with Lucas’ constant spamming of late. It is very doable to put in place a simple spam filtering system that prevents certain phrases from being used more than a specified number of times in a single thread. For example, after 5 posts containing “eaworldview”, all further posts containing that text string will be filtered. Lucas could continue to “contribute” to the discussion, but he wouldn’t be allowed to spam this board with links to his own site.
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
The Iranians in Syria. Press TV claims, from “a tribal figure in northern Lebanon”, that five Iranians — engineers, according to Tehran; soldiers, according to the Free Syria Army, who seized the men — have been moved to the area.
Press TV does not indicate if two other Iranians, who were seized when they tried to obtain information about the missing men, have also been relocated.
The Al Farouk Brigade, which claims to hold the five Iranians and put them on a video which was released last week, is based in Homs, near where the men were abducted.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
1650 GMT: Oil Watch. Contradictory stories are coming out of Tehran over a pre-emptive cut-off of oil to European countries, following the European Union’s decision to suspend Iranian oil imports from 1 July.
Hamidreza Katouzian, the head of Parliament’s Energy Committee has said that no bill has been put before the Majlis (see 1435 GMT). However, the deputy head, Nasser Soudani, insists that the legislation is ready for discussion: “The bill has 4 articles, including one which states that the Islamic Republic of Iran will cut all oil exports to the European states until they end their oil sanctions against the country.”
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
Oh, Goody Goody Gum Drops!
Iran to Unveil New Military Achievements in Days
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi announced that the country plans to unveil several achievements in the field of defense in the next few days.
Vahidi said new achievements in defense, aerospace and missile fields will be unveiled during the Ten-Day Dawn ceremonies from February 1 to 11, celebrating the victory of the Islamic Revolution back in 1979.
Looks like fyi is going to get his wish:
Iranian Parliament Finalizes Draft Bill on Cutting Oil Supplies to Europe
TEHRAN (FNA)- Members of the Iranian parliament finalized a draft bill on cutting the country’s oil exports to the European states in retaliation for the EU’s oil ban against Tehran, a senior legislator said on Saturday.
“The bill has 4 articles, including one which states that the Islamic Republic of Iran will cut all oil exports to the European states until they end their oil sanctions against the country,” Vice-Chairman of the parliament’s Energy Commission Nasser Soudani told FNA.
Elaborating on the other parts of the draft bill, he said another article requires the government to stop imports of goods from those countries which are a party to these sanctions against Iran.
Fior-san says:
YES I object to Lucas’s spamming on RFI and would like to see him banned
NO Free speech and open dialogue should be absolute
What say ye?
I hate to be a spoil sport, but can I suggest a third option? If there is agreement from the floor and from Richard too, of course, I suggest Richard be appointed to screen Scotty Boy’s posts, filtering out anything that Richard, at his sole discretion, determines to be span, leeching, shameless slef-promotion, stirring the pot, provocative for its own sake, plain old-fashioned bullshit, and of course the cover-all category, the non-sequitur.
All those in favor say “Richard needs to give Scotty Boy a spanking”.
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
1600 GMT: Chest-Thumping Watch. This Washington Post story has raised a flutter amongst Internet observers:
The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats.
In response to requests from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos. Unofficially dubbed a “mothership,” the floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs, procurement documents show….
Navy documents indicate that it could be headed to the Persian Gulf, where Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for much of the world’s oil supply. A market survey proposal from the Military Sealift Command, dated Dec. 22 and posted online, states that the floating base needed to be delivered to the Persian Gulf.
Other contract documents do not specify a location but say the mothership would be used to “support mine countermeasure” missions. Defense officials have said that if Iran did attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, it would rely on mines to obstruct the waterway.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
Fiorangela says:
January 28, 2012 at 10:45 am
Fiorangela,
Excellent post. I especially agree with the free and open debate. Come one, come all. Banning one is too much of a slippery slope. Given the consequences of the resolution of this debate, everyone must speak.
Campus Watch: ‘We fight for Israel at Campuses’
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/campus-watch-we-fight-for-israel-at-campuses/
Pirouz says:
January 28, 2012 at 3:29 am
Pirouz,
The Leveretts and their readership have Scott so thoroughly checkmated, that any normal person would be crying their guts out.
Please take a position Scott, we are waiting for the opportunity for rebuttal.
Do you have any more political cartoons to share?
You say there is some logical reason for you to be around here these days, so clearly you are begging the question.
Are you going to make us beg for the answer?
best,
-d
Scott Lucas at 10:47
whatever.
I’m not going to play your guessing game; I don’t care what undoubtedly profound and earthshaking rationale motivates your spams.
Every other website that I’m aware of calls what you are doing Spamming.
It’s bad manners.
Stop it.
Interested says:
January 28, 2012 at 10:00 am
As I wrote earlier, I’ve just checked on Alexa and Mr. Scott Lucas isn’t doing very well at all. It seems like Mr. Lucas is under some kind of pressure.
*
Well, I just checked with Langley, and yeah, Scotty Boy’s been told to shape up or ship out. He’s freakin’. LOL. We’re running a freakin’ meritocracy here, fer chrissakes. Well, its a princedom for the oligarchs, but a savage meritocracy for the peons, heh heh. But shhhhh. If you tell the sucker I said so, I’ll deny it ;o) He’s got the right attitude, but he just can’t for the life of him produce results!
Em, when I said,
1335 GMT: The Battle Within. The Student News Agency, linked to the Basij militia, has declared that six pro-Ahmadinejad sites have started to attack the Revolutionary Guards and Guardian Council freely…
I don’t want you to feel that the press is actually “free” to say what it wants. The press is completely controlled, as you all know, and, I don’t know, it was, yeah… it was a non sequitur. That’s it. In a de facto kinda way. I think.
RSH,
“Scott’s Alexa rank is…far less than Race For Iran.”
You may need another set of reading glasses.
Best,
S.
Fiorangela says:
January 28, 2012 at 9:06 am
another kind of heartbreak –
Thanks for sharing that, Fior-san. Here’s to the day when such a rabbi will no longer be a minority voice, and our Jewish brothers in religion will join the fold of civilization once more. Ameen.
Fiorangela,
“He’s atempting to steal audience share”
No, that’s far from the reason why the Latest News from Iran is being posted — if I was seeking that, I would not be posting the items in full (which reduces any need to see the original at EA WorldView).
S.
thanks Interested.
websites that ban or censor end up talking to themselves; they become boring. Diverse views, however odious, are essential to a full-flavored debate; frequently, the most odious views stimulate the most rigorous thinking.
In that ideal framework, even Scott Lucas should be welcome.
However, it appears that RFI is serving a different function for Lucas — he’s atempting to steal audience share. In effect, he’s pasting his fliers on billboards that the Leveretts have paid for, worked for, and built up over a span of years.
Is there a consensus among all other participants here that Scott’s spam postings should be referred to Flynt and Hillary Leverett with the suggestion that Lucas be blocked?
YES I object to Lucas’s spamming on RFI and would like to see him banned
NO Free speech and open dialogue should be absolute
What say ye?
Really, the Leveretts need to ban this guy… Much of the information he’s posting is not directly relevant to the site – he’s just spamming the site. No one would blame them if he was banned. And with over 900 posts to this thread alone, we don’t need a spammer in here.
Scott’s Alexa rank is less than the Summer-Glau.net fan site…and far less than Race For Iran. What he does have is more sites linking to him – which of course is why he’s over here planting links every day. No doubt he does the same at every other site he can post on…
What a leeching scumbag…
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
1525 GMT: Execution Watch. In the latest confirmation of a death sentence on a blogger or website designers, web developer and humorist Mehdi Alizadeh Fakhrabad has been condemned by Judge Abolghasem Salavati on charges of “mohareb” (war against God).
Fakhrabad was arrested in summer 2008 on charges of disseminating obscene material. He was held for nine months before being released on 100 million Toman (about $100,000 at the time) bail. He was rearrested March of 2011.
Saeed Malekpour and Vahid Asghari, co-defendants with Alizadeh, have also been sentenced to death.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
I only checked alexa, because Scott Lucas told us to do so. His website doesn’t even compare to Press TV and Farsnews which includes http://english.farsnews.com/ has far more viewers than Press TV.
There must be some real concern about funding and a decline in viewers that has worried Scott Lucas. This seems to be the reason for his dramatic news about ordinary life in Iran.
As I wrote earlier, I’ve just checked on Alexa and Mr. Scott Lucas isn’t doing very well at all. His website doesn’t even compare to a third rate newspaper (I may be a bit harsh) like Tehran Times.
It seems like Mr. Lucas is under some kind of pressure.
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
1435 GMT: Oil Watch. Hamidreza Katouzian, the head of Parliament’s Energy Committee, has denied that the Majlis has prepared a bill to stop oil exports, saying all MPs do not agree on the measure and “unsuitable people and organisations” should not discuss the matter.
Following Monday’s European Union decision to suspend oil imports from Tehran from 1 July, several Iranian MPs declared that Parliament would begin discussions on Sunday of a measure to halt exports to European countries immediately.
Katouzian said any oil boycott should be left to experts, not to “unqualified people and organisations”, as news of the measure could have more bad than good effects.
1425 GMT: Currency Watch. Mehr uses photographs to report on a significant development today — Iran’s Central Bank has attempted to replace the current system of five exchange rates with a single rate for the Iranian Rial.
The new rate is 12380 Rials to 1 US $. That is a slightly weaker level for the Rial from the Bank’s official rate on Thursday of 11320:1 but a far stronger level for the Rial from the open-market rate of 17800:1.
So, anticipating the chance to buy “cheap” foreign currency, including US dollars, Iranians have queued up for transactions.
Peyke Iran claims that, with some “official” exchanges refusing to sell at the new rate, an “unofficial” market selling 1 dollar for 17500 Rials has already begun.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
1355 GMT: The Iranians in Syria. An EA reader offers some information for our questions about the Iranian “soldiers”/”engineers” abducted and put on video by the Free Syrian Army (see 1020 GMT):
“[State news agency] IRNA had reported on 4 December 2011 that the five abducted engineers worked for Fanavaran Sanat Gostar Zagros and Parsian companies, which are subcontractors of MAPNA (Iran Power Plant Projects Managements Co.).
IRNA also emphasises that MAPNA is a renowned company figuring on the United Nations’ vendor list. The five had allegedly been involved earlier in the construction of the Tishreen power plant [southeast of Damascus].
As to the abduction date, IRNA claims it was on 20 September 2011.”
1335 GMT: The Battle Within. The Student News Agency, linked to the Basij militia, has declared that six pro-Ahmadinejad sites have started to attack the Revolutionary Guards and Guardian Council freely, while defending the speeches of the President’s right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, abusing the words of the Supreme Leader for their own purposes, slandering religious personalities, and portraying a split between Ahmadinejad and former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The six sites are Mahramaneh News, Raha Press, Meyar News, Zaman News, Khordad Press, and Hemmat-Negar.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
another kind of heartbreak –
Rabbi Berger represents the Jewish people I grew up with, lived with, loved and admired. His voice, and that tradition, seems to have been hijacked by zionism — militarized nationalism; Rabbi Berger and the American Jews for Alternatives to Zionism sought to resist. (personal musing: what Foxman & others call antisemitism, and which terrifies me when I recognize it in myself, may be that peculiar and intense form of equal and opposite reaction that occurs when one is betrayed by someone that one has loved intensely.)
Berger mentored Norton Mezvinsky, who has collaborated with Israel Shahak to reclaim Judaism from zionism. Mezvinsky has posted articles on Pat Lang’s website – ;http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2011/03/mezvinsky-on-zionism.html
and
;http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2011/09/is-zionism-a-positive-expression-of-jewish-nationalism-.html
Rabbi Elmer Berger, May 1989 interview
Elmer Berger (May 27, 1908 – October 8, 1996) was a Jewish Reform rabbi widely known for his anti-Zionism. He was the executive director of the American Council for Judaism from its founding in 1943 until he resigned in 1968, at which time he founded American Jews for Alternatives to Zionism.
Berger was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a Hungarian-born railroad engineer and a third generation German-American Jew born in Texas. As a boy his family attended the Euclid Avenue Temple where he was encouraged to study for the rabbinate by Rabbi Louis Wolsey. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Cincinnati, he was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1932. He began his brief career in the ministry in Pontiac, Michigan before serving in Flint, Michigan from 1936 to 1942.
Berger married Seville Schwartz, the sister of a classmate at Hebrew Union College, in 1931. They divorced in 1946, and shortly thereafter he remarried to Ruth Winegarden, the daughter of a prominent furniture manufacturer who belonged to the Flint congregation. They were married until Ruth’s death in 1979.
From the beginning, Elmer Berger was squarely in the camp of those Reform rabbis who opposed the Columbus Platform of 1935 which modified the movement’s original anti-Zionism and rejection of traditional ritual. It was Berger’s mentor, Louis Wolsey, who would in 1942 issue a call to convene the American Council for Judaism, and who hired Berger as its first executive director. In the organization’s struggle against the founding of the State of Israel during the 1940s, Berger increasingly became the movement’s public face, particularly with the publication of his book The Jewish Dilemma in 1945, which argued that Zionism was a surrender to the Nazi racial myths about the Jews and that assimilationism was still the best path for the Jews in the modern world.
The founding of the State of Israel in 1948, which prompted the defection of Louis Wolsey, did little to slow the activities of Berger and the ACJ, who felt that their chief purpose was to combat the influence of Zionism in the religious life of American Jews. He continued to write and lecture on behalf of the ACJ, becoming its Executive Vice President. In this position he became increasingly well known and widely despised by the Zionist camp in American Judaism, particularly after he toured the broader Middle East in 1955 and became increasingly identified with Arab and Palestinian causes.
After the Six Day War in 1967, an event which swept what had previously been an arguably ambivalent American Jewish community with a massive pro-Israel fervor, Berger was widely pilloried, including by other members of the American Council for Judaism, for declaring Israel to be the principal aggressor in the conflict. This ultimately led to Berger’s resignation from the Council the following year, at which time he founded, with the support of some loyal friends, American Jews for Alternatives to Zionism, which was intended to serve only as his personal vehicle for writing and lecturing. This, he continued to do actively, although in a state of semi-retirement, splitting his time between New York and Sarasota, Florida.
Elmer Berger died in Sarasota of lung cancer at the age of 88. Among his direct legacies were his close involvement with the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and his mentorship of the noted Middle East scholar Norton Mezvinsky.
•Elmer Berger: The Jewish Dilemma : The Case Against Zionist Nationalism, Devin-Adair, New York, 1945
•Elmer Berger: A Partisan History of Judaism : The Jewish Case Against Zionism, Devin-Adair, New York, 1951
•Elmer Berger: Who Knows Better Must Say So! American Council for Judaism, New York, 1955
•Elmer Berger: Judaism or Jewish Nationalism: The Alternative to Zionism, Bookman Associates, 1957
•Elmer Berger: Letters and Non-Letters: The White House, Zionism and Israel, Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut, 1972.
•Elmer Berger: Memoirs of an Anti-Zionist Jew. Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut, 1978.
•Deane A. Tack, Elmer Berger: Thorns of Resistance, Destra Publishers, 1993 ISBN 0963598201
•Elmer Berger: Peace for Palestine: First Lost Opportunity, University Press of Florida Gainesville, FL 1993 ISBN 0813012074
•American Council for Judaism
•A Tribute to Rabbi Elmer Berger, a short biography
•A Jewish Thinker in the Tradition of Humanistic Universalism by Dr. Naseer Aruri January/February 1997, pgs. 24, 84 Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
I’ve just checked on Alexa and Mr. Scott Lucas isn’t doing very well at all. His website doesn’t even compare to a third rate newspaper (I may be a bit harsh) like Tehran Times.
It seems like Mr. Lucas is under some kind of pressure.
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
1219 GMT: Elections Watch. Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman for the Guardian Council, has said that 45% of candidates for March’s Parliamentary have been rejected by the Council.
Previously, the Council said only 20% of candidates been barred.
Kadkhodaei reassured that, despite the higher figure, the rate of approval was up by 17% over the 2008 elections.
1209 GMT: Currency Watch. The Iranian Rial, having risen in more than 25% in value vs. the US dollar this week after rises in interest rates, has weakened almost 5% this morning.
The Rial is now at 17800:1 vs. the dollar.
1206 GMT: Budget Watch. Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, has said that the Majlis still has not received the Government’s proposed budget for 2012/13.
Vice President Mohammad Reza Mirtajoddini has said that Parliament will be given the Budget this week.
The Government’s submission was due in December, but it missed not only that deadline but also Parliament’s extension.
The new Iranian year starts on 21 March.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
1203 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Etedaal reports that President Ahmadinejad is going on-line with a new private website “to stay in touch with the people”, answering their questions and meeting their demands as soon as possible.
1200 GMT: Economy Watch. Reza Karami, the Deputy Supervisor of the Guild Council, has insisted that sugar must be sold at 1200 Toman (about 70 cents) rather than the current level of 1700 Toman (about $1).
At the same time, Karami assured there is enough cooking fat in Bazaar, and rumours about shortages are untrue as inspectors control market prices. As an example, he said the cost of an egg tray was down to 5000 Toman (about $3).
Reformist MP Qodratollah Alikhani has declared that the Government has lied about creating 2.5 million new jobs, publishing false data. He said many people had in fact suffered through unemployment, while the Government added to their woes through the currency turmoil.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
I’ve just checked on Alexa and Mr. Scott Lucas isn’t doing very well at all. His website doesn’t even compare to a (third rate newspaper like Tehran Times.
It seems like Mr. Lucas is under some kind of pressure.
Sassan says:
January 27, 2012 at 11:22 pm
Christopher Hitchens on the immorality of religion and particular mention of the raping of virgin women in Iran before execution..:
*
Methinks that paragon of virtue is cherry picking. (Geddit?)
Follow the Money
There’s been some talk, especially by our beloved 20% Gavner, that the NATO war on Libya could not have been about oil, becuase Daffy was selling it just fine, and no different than the NTC, etc. I guess this got me thinking and what has been percolating for a while has finally reared its head.
The cosmic war that Shi’a Islam is being forced to fight by the forces of Christendom and its already-delapidated Zion is fought on many fronts, one of the most basic or elemental of which is the prevention of ideation contrary to its interests and values. This is done by controlling the limits of discourse, by defining the Overton window. One infamous example is the Mercator projection of the world (a projection of a three-dimentional surface on a two-dimentional one in a way that makes every land mass north of the equator look bigger than it actually is and everything to the south smaller). I guess that’s a diversion to what I am building up to say, (but keep it in the back of your minds) but it occured to me that the fact that all the talk of oil focuses on the number of barrels of oil per day produced and exported, but you never once hear talk of whether those export barrels are produced by local companies and indigenous technology, or whether they are taken out of the ground by foreign interests under contracts that usually give half of the produce to the extracting party. Such is the case in Aramco (always has been), and such is the case in all of the client states in the Persian Gulf (Kuwait, Qatar, UAE). Such was NOT the case in Saddam’s Iraq, where the industry was nationalized and local engineers did much of the work. Such is also, of course, not the case in Iran, so that, if we were to compare Iran’s oil exports (2.6 million b/d) to Saudi Arabia’s (10 mb/d?), it is about a quarter of that, but if you compare it to the actual value that is added to the respective contries’ economy, then it would be a comparison of $100 million/ year compared to $200 million not $400 million.
Obviously, this is significant.
And I don’t know, but I suspect, that when the Western press talks about the NTC honoring all of Daffy’s contracts, I think what they are talking about is that the companies who have concession rights on a given field will get to keep that concession; that they are not going to start from scratch. But it would not surprise me in the least if the fine print (which will of course remain “confidential” and “proprietary”) gives the companies much larger roles in the development of upstream infrastructure, where the real money is at, together with terms that are based on the Aramco (rape the sand-niggers) model, which I suspect Daffy was trying his utmost to get away from.
I wonder if THAT rape breaks Agent Sassan’s heart?
Agent Sassan says “These images are heartbreaking”
Ah, I’m SO glad your dark heart is broken. And they say my government hasn’t done any good!
*
Pirouz says “The Iranians could be witch doctors. If that’s what the majority of their people want, so be it. Who am I to disagree?”
Exactly. FYI: are you listening? Your failure to take Mr. Pirouz’s advice and accept majoritarian rule irrespective of what that means for “their betters” puts you in the same league as those modernists moslems in Iran who want to impose their (minority) view on others both within and without the country. It makes you, to use your own words, a “Pharisee” [uncloseted to all but yourself] Christian.
*
Will those people feeling the urge to actually engage Agents Scotty, Sassan, Binam, Pak, etc., in a serious dialogue in the futile hope of “turning” them kindly take their missionary zeal to other sites such as iranian.com, where you will find 100’s of such fools awaiting your ministry with twice as many deaf ears and blind eyes? I Thank you kindly in advance for your consideration. On the other hand, those who want to take pot shots at them for shits and giggles or to obviate their uninformed foolhardiness, by all means, do not let me stop you, and forgive the interruption.
The Latest News from Iran — 28 January:
1040 GMT: Economy Watch. Mahmoud Bahmani, the head of the Central Bank, and Minister of Economy Shamseddin Hosseini have cancelled a meeting with MPs because of the absence of Government officials.
This is the second rebuff of the Parliament in recent week — the first rejection of an invitation by MPs occurred earlier this month, just before President Ahmadinejad toured Latin America.
1020 GMT: The Iranians in Syria. An interesting contribution from Syria’s State news agency SANA on the seven Iranian men held by a brigade of the Free Syrian Army, five of whom were shown in a video on Thursday “confessing” to operating as snipers and killing civilians in Homs:
“The Director of Public Relations and Marketing at Iran’s MAPNA Group, Bahnam Hakiki, affirmed on Friday that the seven Iranians abducted in Syria in September 2011 are engineers working on the construction of an electric plant, and that the cards they carry are military service discharge cards.
Hakiki said that the seven engineers were abducted while working on the Jandal electric power plant near Homs, and that they were never military personnel and that the cards they carry simply show that they completed their military service, adding that all Iranians who finished mandatory military service carry such cards.
He stressed that anything these people said or will say in the future is a result of coercion under pressure, noting that Sajad Amirian — who appeared on al-Jazeera and showed his card to the camera — is in charge of electric installations at the plant, and that all documents proving this are available….
MAPNA Group is an Iranian group of Iranian companies involved in construction and installation of energy production.”
Some notes: 1) this article places the abduction of the seven men in September — Iranian media have said that the first five were seized on 21 December, and the following two kidnapped when they tried to resolve the situation of their colleagues; 2) Hakiki’s statement shows sensitivity in particuarly over the display of the military cards on camera, although he is correct that the two seen were end-of-conscription cards; 3) to my knowledge, this is the first that the MAPNA Group has been linked to the seven men.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
Pirouz,
No, the reason for putting Latest News from Iran on RFI has nothing to do with the relative number of readers of EA WorldView and of RFI — a glance at the websites on alexa.com will make that clear.
Instead, as I mentioned to you yesterday, there is a very different, significant reason for posting the information here.
Best,
S.
AND to the Persian Gulf…
“Navy documents indicate that it could be headed to the Persian Gulf, where Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for much of the world’s oil supply. A market survey proposal from the Military Sealift Command, dated Dec. 22 and posted online, states that the floating base needed to be delivered to the Persian Gulf.”
And note – they want it NOW…
“One no-bid contract for engineering work states that the military was waiving normal procurement rules because any delay presented a “national security risk.” Other contract bids are due Feb. 3. The Navy wants the conversion work to begin 10 days later on the Ponce, which is docked in Virginia Beach.”
Meanwhile the Pentagon wants a “commando mothership” to deploy to the Middle East, presumably to be used against Syria and Iran…
Navy wants commando ‘mothership’ in Middle East
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-wants-commando-mother-ship/2012/01/27/gIQA66rGWQ_story.html?wpisrc=al_national
And Obama ratchets up tensions with Pakistan, using his flunky Panetta again…
Panetta: Officials in Pakistan had to know about bin Laden
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/207167-panetta-officials-in-pakistan-knew-about-bin-laden
APNewsBreak: Weapons experts part of UN team trying to probe Iran for alleged atomic arms work
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/apnewsbreak-weapons-experts-part-of-un-team-trying-to-probe-iran-for-alleged-nuke-arms-work/2012/01/27/gIQAjCs3VQ_print.html
In other words, they’ve seeded this IAEA team with people whose job it is to gain intelligence on Iran’s ballistic missiles, NOT the nuclear program.
“the IAEA team was looking for permission to talk to key Iranian scientists suspected of weapons work”
In other words, to gain intelligence on who to assassinate next…
While the Pentagon makes bigger bombs to drop on Iran…
Pentagon Seeks Mightier Bomb vs. Iran
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203363504577187420287098692.html
Quotes
The 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, was specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs.
But initial tests indicated that the bomb, as currently configured, wouldn’t be capable of destroying some of Iran’s facilities, either because of their depth or because Tehran has added new fortifications to protect them.
Doubts about the MOP’s effectiveness prompted the Pentagon this month to secretly submit a request to Congress for funding to enhance the bomb’s ability to penetrate deeper into rock, concrete and steel before exploding, the officials said.
The push to boost the power of the MOP is part of stepped-up contingency planning for a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear program, say U.S. officials.
The official said some Pentagon war planners believe conventional bombs won’t be effective against Fordow and that a tactical nuclear weapon may be the only military option if the goal is to destroy the facility. “Once things go into the mountain, then really you have to have something that takes the mountain off,” the official said.
The official said the MOP may be more effective against Iran’s main enrichment plant at Natanz but added: “But even that is guesswork.”
The Pentagon notified Congress in mid-January that it wants to divert around $82 million to refine the MOP, taking the money from other defense programs. The decision to sidestep the normal budget request process suggests the Pentagon deems the MOP upgrades to be a matter of some urgency.
End Quotes
That’s twice in the article that they admit they want this bomb NOW.
And the Israelis pile it on deeper and higher…
Barak: World must act against Iran before it’s too late
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/barak-world-must-act-against-iran-before-it-s-too-late-1.409538
Why OWS Should Lead the “No Iran War!” Resistance
http://joescarry.blogspot.com/2012/01/ows-leading-no-iran-war-resistance.html
Pepe Escobar on The Iranian oil embargo blowback
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA28Ak05.html
Quotes
If the sorry parade of European poodles – or what analyst Chris Floyd delightfully dubbed Europuppies – had any understanding of Persian culture, they would have known that blowback for their declaration of economic war in the form of an Iranian oil embargo would be nothing short of heavy metal.
Better yet; death metal. The Majlis (Iranian parliament) will discuss this Sunday, in an open section, whether to cancel right away all oil exports to any European country that approved the embargo – according to Emad Hosseini, the rapporteur of the Majlis Energy Committee. And that comes with the requisite apocalyptic warning, relayed via the Fars news agency, courtesy of member of Parliament Nasser Soudani: “Europe will burn in the fire of Iran’s oil wells.”
Soudani expresses the views of the whole Tehran establishment when he says that “the structure of their [Europe's] refineries is compatible with Iran’s oil”, and so Europeans have no alternative as replacement; the embargo “will cause an increase in oil prices, and the Europeans will be compelled to buy oil at higher prices”; that is, Europe “will be compelled to buy Iran’s oil indirectly and through intermediaries”.
End Quotes
Another child execution (hanging): http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s320×320/398610_647427579791_201000782_33207118_258448737_n.jpg
Eric A. Brill says:
January 27, 2012 at 11:13 pm
Eric, if those multiple Iran public opinion polls had shown opposite results, I’d buy into them.
Likewise, if your election analysis at sometime in the future is successfully refuted, I’d have no problem with it. In fact, I’ve encouraged detractors to knock you down. But where some have failed, the other’s won’t even make an attempt.
The Iranians could be witch doctors. If that’s what the majority of their people want, so be it. Who am I to disagree? The reason I come here and participate is I’m an American (of partial Iranian descent) that agrees with the Leveretts’ U.S. policy advocacy.
Why a supposed objective news editor would choose to spend time here attempting to subvert this U.S. policy advocacy speaks volumes, don’t you think?
He needs to at least come clean. His effort is not aimed at objective news reporting, but instead activism. And the fact that he has to come here begging for viewers to come see his site is a sure sign he’s failing at his own endeavor. Pathetic.
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/301975_232958106753733_100001186352423_605721_201309912_n.jpg
~~~~These images are heartbreaking but the world has to see it~~~~
“Alireza (17 years old) has reportedly been crying out for mercy before the execution and wanted to see his mother”
Eric: “He seems to believe in the truth of whatever information he receives that supports his views, and so he at least deserves credit for sincerity.”
Oh, hell, no, there’s no sincerity in that clown. You can tell that from his smarmy punk attitude.
And frankly as long as this idiot is coming over here to be a “link leech” we should all go over there and exhort his handful of followers to get some real facts over here. If everyone here went over there and proclaimed him a lame smarmy punk he might start to lose what little hits he gets. Of course, the odds are he’d ban all of us anyway, so perhaps that wouldn’t work any more than it did on Juan Cole’s site.
Personally I think the Leveretts’ Webmaster should cut him off as he’s violating Internet etiquette by posting links to his own site in his posts. At best, one is allowed to post a link to one’s own site in own’s signature in some blog software. This is not considered full on “spam”. What Lucas is doing is considered spam on most sites. If he posted links to the original story it would be acceptable.
He’s a “site leech” and nothing more.
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
0800 GMT: Claim of Day. The head of the Basij militia, asserts, four days after the event, that Iran “permitted” US warships to enter the Persian Gulf after President Obama wrote a letter of request to the regime.
Iranian officials had threatened to prevent any entry by the American navy into the Straits of Hormuz.
0755 GMT: Currency Watch. The regime presses the campaign that the currency crisis has nothing to do with Iran’s economic situation and is all due to “culprits”….
Both the Minister of Intelligence, Heydar Moslehi, and Vice President Mohammad Reza Mirtajoddini have explained that the crisis in the gold and currency markets was due to manipulation “behind the scenes”. Moslehi said the wrongdoers have been identified and their names will soon be announced.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
tally sticks and the bank of England
THE TALLY STICKS (1100 – 1854)
King Henry the First produced sticks of polished wood, with notches cut along one edge to signify the denominations. The stick was then split full length so each piece still had a record of the notches.
The King kept one half for proof against counterfeiting, and then spent the other half into the market place where it would continue to circulate as money.
Because only Tally Sticks were accepted by Henry for payment of taxes, there was a built in demand for them, which gave people confidence to accept these as money.
He could have used anything really, so long as the people agreed it had value, and his willingness to accept these sticks as legal tender made it easy for the people to agree. Money is only as valuable as peoples faith in it, and without that faith even today’s money is just paper.
The tally stick system worked really well for 726 years. It was the most successful form of currency in recent history and the British Empire was actually built under the Tally Stick system, but how is it that most of us are not aware of its existence?
Perhaps the fact that in 1694 the Bank of England at its formation attacked the Tally Stick System gives us a clue as to why most of us have never heard of them. They realised it was money outside the power of the money changers, (the very thing King Henry had intended).
What better way to eliminate the vital faith people had in this rival currency than to pretend it simply never existed and not discuss it. That seems to be what happened when the first shareholder’s in the Bank of England bought their original shares with notched pieces of wood and retired the system. You heard correctly, they bought shares. The Bank of England was set up as a privately owned bank through investors buying shares. Even the Banks resent nationalisation is not what it at first may appear, as its independent resources unceasingly multiply and dividends continue to be produced for its shareholder’s.
The Latest from Iran — 28 January:
0640 GMT: All-Is-Well Alert. Deputy Minister of Industry Mohammad Hassan Nekouei-Mehr, assures, “We will have no inflation” because of the currency situation, as 10,000 supervisors are controlling prices.
In a clip within a Voice of America report about the “economic stability” declared by President Ahmadinejad, State broadcaster IRIB assures that there is enough meat and chicken in the Bazaar.
0620 GMT: Friday was dominated by the mystery around the video of the five captured Iranians in Syria — are they engineers, as Tehran claims? are they Iranian troops, under cover of being engineers and technicians, as the Free Syrian Army declares? do they have a dual role, working on the power plant in Homs but also carrying out a task such as gathering intelligence?
Today it is back to reading the Iranian political and economic situation.
Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi — once labelled the President’s “spiritual mentor”, member of the Assembly of Experts, and now the leader of the Islamic Constancy Front, pursuing victories in March’s Parliamentary elections — throws a jab at conservative/principlist rivals: “Some put on Islamic clothes to follow evil aims with public relations and psychology, claiming justice for the disenfranchised.”
Some sharp differences in Friday Prayers. In Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami set out the defiant line versus the “enemy”, insisting that the European Union’s sanctions — which are really an attempt to disrupt the Parliamentary elections, similar to the attempt at “velvet revolution” amid the 2009 Presidential ballot — are meaningless. And Ayatollah Alamolhoda chest-thumped in Mashhad that the “Islamic Republic can close in” on the ships of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the Straits of Hormuz.
But Ayatollah Reza Ostadi had another focus in Qom, asking, “How can people survive one month on a 50,000 Toman (about $290) salary when rent is 30,000 Toman (about $175)?”
Filmmaker Mohammad Reza Nourizad maintains his critical challenge through his 20th letter to the Supreme Leader. Nourizad, who was detained for several months because of the writing, calls on Ayatollah Khamenei to apologise to the people: “It is the only way to return to stability.”
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/28/the-latest-from-iran-28-january-back-to-the-battle-within.html
fyi:
I really don’t know what you are talking about when you mention girls riding bicycles. In the village where I lived for a while before moving to Tehran, I saw girls ride bicycles all the time, and here in Darrous there is a girl who rides her bike in our alley all the time. I don’t know what it is with you – probably just another symptom of the multiple personality syndrome we have talked about in the past – but your going on like this is like an ex- member of the Amish community who has moved from Pennsylvania to Orange County, CA, and complains that the community which of which he is no longer a part refuses to allow little girls to ride in horse-drawn carriages.
And I am afraid that again out of time, dear fyi, but you ARE making progress. I’ll see you next week, and don’t forget to up your meds a tad or three.
Richard says (About Agent Scotty): “And it’s really irritating me that anyone here is bothering to engage you because it will just encourage your lame attempts to disrupt this site.”
Amen, brother.
“Fuck off, moron.”
Amen, hallelujah and praise the good Lawd!
Kooshy-san:
Richard Steven Hack says: Add mine, too – especially the ones where I call him an idiot…
Needless to say, feel free to use any of my posts, especially the juicy ones.
ehleel says:
January 27, 2012 at 8:01 pm
If you don’t credit what you cut and paste, you give the impression to some that what you have pasted is actually your own words.
Highlights from the Kayhan editorial Nahid Khanum posted:
وضع اقتصادي كشور ما از وضع اقتصادي ايتاليا بهتر است با اين وصف ايران به راحتي و بدون حتي اندكي لرزش مي تواند از صادرات اين 17درصد چشم پوشي كند و خدا كند كه مسئولين كشور درصدد بازاريابي برنيايند و اين را يك فرصت تازه براي عبور از «اقتصاد نفتي» به حساب آورند.
با اين وصف كاملا پيداست كه اروپايي ها ناچارند خود به نوعي فتيله تحريم ها را پايين بكشند كما اين كه همين الان توتال فرانسه از يك طرف بيانيه داده كه از تحريم پيروي مي كند و از طرف ديگر يك شركت واسطه را براي انعقاد قراردادهاي جديد نفت ايران فعال كرده است. به عبارت ديگر اروپا در نماي تبليغاتي خريد نفت ايران را تحريم كرده و در نماي واقعي دنبال تداوم روابط نفتي با ايران است و البته ايران بايد راه بازي دوگانه و فرصت طلبانه را بر روي اروپا ببندد.
همه مي دانند كه اينك در معاملات اروپا دلار جايگاهي ندارد. قدرت هاي مهم اقتصادي آسيا- نظير روسيه، چين، هند، ژاپن، كره جنوبي و مالزي- هم دلار را كنار گذاشته اند. در آمريكاي لاتين نيز دلار جايگاه خود را از دست داده و هر روز از قيمت آن كاسته مي شود
I think this last is, as usual with Kayhan, mixed in with a little wishful thinking. Nonetheless, I think that the fact that the trend that Kayhan has put its finger on is indeed a huge concern for the US, which has trillions of dollars just floating out there, being used for the purposes of foreign exchange, which, when that functionality no longer obtains, will do nothing but act as a heavy weight to bring down the value of the dollar.
Fiorangela: That was harsh to claim that “U.S. has a military that rapes Japanese virgins”. When one U.S. soldier does this as was the case, he is prosecuted under the law and serves jail time. It is not practices by the U.S. military or any way condoned. In contrast, the thugs and hooligans inside of the Revolutionary Guards rape virgins before executions as a matter of policy.
And I am about to go watch Bill Maher but to quickly respond: a free Iran will be a secular one in which all political parties, beliefs, and ideologies will be able to compete in a secular system which will be voted upon at a future date of liberation in which either a system of republican, parliamentary, or limited constitutional monarchy will be established. This means that individuals from Reza Pahlavi to Mohsen Sazegara will compete in open elections. It will be a free and democratic system in which all parties will be involved and there will be no authoritarian at the top.
Last thing: I look at Japan and Germany as great examples to how countries have become powerful economic and international forces after despotic and tyrannical rulers have been forced out of their countries through policies of liberation (although I regard the end to Japanese tyranny as the darkest moment in U.S. history). Despite this, the Japanese people clearly have demonstrated their superior culture and society.
Have a good night. :)
Fiorangela: I am not pro-Israel, I am simply not anti-Israel. There is a big difference.
In addition, I find it purely lame, nonsensical, irrelevant, and plainly stupid that when it comes to discussing Iran and the atrocities committed by this regime – the subject of Israel is brought up.
We are Iranian. The Israeli-Palestinian issue is a non-Iranian issue. This is in fact a great discord between ordinary Iranians and this regime. The Israeli-Palestinian issue is none of our business and Iran should not be spending money to support extremist Islamicists and instead should focus solely on Iran. We are Iranian, not Arab.
And Christopher Hitchens is a hero to all of humanity, rationality and reason. I value what Christopher Hitchens has brought forth to humanity and miss him very much.
what is your love affair with Israel, Sassan? Who cares if Iran is “better” or “worse” than Israel, except perhaps Israelis, who, according to Avigail Abarbanel, are “orgasmic” to wage war on Iran. It’s the Sampson option — Israel covets Iran’s history, culture, resources, and stability, and what Israel cannot possess, it seeks to destroy. Careful what you wish for, Sassan.
I always feet dirty after reading anything Christopher Hitchens wrote.
thank you, Sassan, for the thoughtful explanation.
When we were at Persepolis and at the tomb of Darius, we were told that the mullahs had threatened to level the places but that local farmers organized and blocked their path and saved what the monuments. However, they are not well protected from either vandals or the elements, nor are they ‘tourist-friendly,’ which might be a good thing — there is certainly no Disneyland quality to anyplace I visited in Iran.
I also recall that an Armenian Christian who guided us around Isfehan told us about a Jewish queen who acquired great wealth and prosperity for the Jewish people in Isfehan, supported by the efforts of the rest of the population and government that provided security, governance, infrastructure, etc., but that when Jews left the area, of their own accord, they took their wealth with them, to the dismay of the rest of the Iranian people of Isfehan. Everywhere we went and everyone we spoke with in Iran was very respectful of Jewish people, as was the Armenian Christian guide. His comment was stated in a very matter-of-fact manner, as if the situation were dismaying but not a cause for hatred. I have never been able to figure out who that Jewish queen was.
I asked you before — If the mullah regime were to be replaced, who would govern Iran? Iranians would be well advised to develop some leaders of their own, lest we exceptionalist Americans — and/or zionists — decide for you, based on our superior knowledge and record of creating “freedom” and “democracy” as we did in Philippines, — where US is basing more military, in Chile, and numerous other places in S. America; in Japan, where US still has military that rape Japanese virgins with no regard to their heavenly or earthly destiny, etc.
Is Iran worse than Israel? When Iran is criticized for abusing women and atrocious lack of respect for their rights, many apologists will bring up the subject of Israel.
Christopher Hitchens discusses this subject:
http://youtu.be/J8UEVoSJmfs
IRAN: Was ancient fortress temple destroyed to make room for Basiji prayer center?
September 6, 2010 | 2:21 pm
Conflicting statements have emerged over whether the remains of a 2,000-year-old Parthian fortress known as Tappeh Dokhtar, or the “Virgin’s Mound,” dating from Iran’s pre-Islamic past were recently demolished in the Iranian city of Hamadan to make room for a mosalla, a Muslim prayer center often used by hard-line supporters of the government.
An official in Hamadan told Babylon & Beyond over the phone that the remains of the monument, which stood on a hilltop in the area known as Tappeh Mosalla, were still “intact” and emphasized that “no damage” had been caused to it.
But statements from other local officials and researchers on Iranian cultural heritage sites suggest otherwise.
“Until two years ago the remains of the ruins of the fortress, which was possibly Parthian, was standing and was destroyed when the construction of the mosalla began,” Mehrnush Najafi-Ragheb, spokeswoman for Hamadan’s Municipality Islamic Council, told Iran’s Culture Heritage News Agency.
Babak Maqazei, spokesman for an Iranology association in Hamadan, also claims that the last remnants of Tappeh Dokhtar have been flattened, but rather in a bid to create more public infrastructure.
“Unfortunately the historic mound has been destroyed, excavated, and buried under a newly built library and residential area,” he told Babylon & Beyond.
The allegedly ill-fated monument is said to once have been a grand edifice used as a strategic defensive structure until the late 1700s, when members of the Qajar royal dynasty brought the city of Hamadan to its knees and left Tappeh Dokhtar in ruins.
Some experts also suggest it once served as a temple for the Zoroastrian goddess Anahita because Iranian monuments that carry the name “dokhtar,” meaning “daughter and virgin,” usually refer to the deity, according to the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, an independent London-based research society and education program on ancient Iran and Iranian civilization.
The purported demolishing of the historic mound reflects an ongoing struggle over Iran’s pre-Islamic past and has drawn anger from Iranian heritage advocates.
Shaqayeq Fatullahzadeh, a campaigner for the preservation of Iranian culture heritage sites, told Babylon & Beyond that she has kept busy calling up officials in Hamadan to protest the demolishing of Tappeh Dokhtar.
Whatever the fate of it, Maqazei said that an increasing number of Iranian heritage sites are being torn down and overrun to make room for various building projects.
He gave the example of another pre-Islamic historic site near Hamadan, which he says is nowadays almost entirely covered by water due to the building of a water reservoir nearby.
“Under the pretext of building dams or dikes the ancient site is being destroyed forever,” he said.
Dr. Hoshang Tale, an expert on Iranian pre-Islamic history, claims the ruining of Iranian cultural heritage sites has become a systematic practice among opportunistic local officials in hopes of making an extra buck.
“Unfortunately, the destruction of Iranian ancient artifacts is carried out in a well-organized manner,” he told Babylon & Beyond. “The top officials in the capital sometimes react and prevent the further destruction of the historic sites but it is in many cases too late. Regrettably, the local managers in the provincial towns do the destruction … and gain something for their own pockets at the expense of destruction of historic places.”
– Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Alexandra Sandels in Beirut
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/09/iran-ancient-monument-destruction-basiij-hamadan.html
Fiorangela says: “Sassan, if you are so proud of Iranian culture, why do you speak in the jargon of those who are keen to destroy it”
Fiorangela, I take you to be serious in your questioning and interest so I will make a detailed response.
First of all, the only people who are keen to destroy Iranian culture are the maniacs running the government inside of Iran. We see those elites and terrorists running the government of Iran not as true Iranians but those who ultimately are ashamed of Iranian culture. In fact, do you know of the symbolic meaning of the black turban of those Mullahs who wear them instead of the white turbans? It means that they are the so-called descendants of Islamic Arabs. It is this regime that year in and year out have done everything to minimize and demonize our traditions and holidays. Just last year I believe it was they reduced the number of days for Persian New Years and Mullahs regularly talk about how pre-Islamic traditions are against Islam. In addition, they have plain out made illegal such Iranian holidays and traditions such as 4-Shambeh Sohre and Mehragon. Just the year before last Basiji thugs stopped my cousin driving in Tehran and told him not to display his Sofre-Hafseen on the front of his dashboard which he had placed. This is a regime that stands in front of Iranian traditions, values, and morals.
As for the Iranian artificats – I think I can speak for nearly all Iranians who value our historic past when I say (figuratively of course since I do not believe in celestial dictatorships) “thank god” that the ancient Iranian artificats are not in the hands of these maniacs. What better way to have them destroyed than be in the hands of these maniacs?
As for the Cyrus Cylinder, it was discovered by a British archaeologist and the British actually care about history and it is in great care under the right temperatures and lighting conditions inside of the British National Museum. The only reason why there were such “stringent” rules when the Cyrus Cylinder visited the Iranian National Museum last year (and I had a chance to see it when I was in Iran) was because of the demands placed upon it by the British. I “thank god” for these demands as if it were not for the British, such artifacts would not be under such great care. In fact, I visited a town some 100 km from Shiraz called Bishapur last year (it is an ancient site built by King Shapur) in which there was not a single guard on the premises when I visited it last year. I had access to the entire ancient site including underground site of Anahita and the ancient structures and castle and could have chipped at the wall, stolen rocks and other artifacts, or defaced it at will. When visiting Tachte-Jamshid (Persepolis) there were children running around inside of Darius The Great’s ancient palace and I had to run and find a security guard and urge him to even care in preserving the site. The ancient ruins have become destroyed and many have even been defaced for Islamic artifacts and monuments – but for the pre-Islamic sites that are important for Iranians, they do something more sinister and cunning. They allow the sites to be destroyed by either not caring for them or constructing such endeavors such as “water projects” near the site of Cyrus The Great (Pasargad).
You should check out this thread on this site regarding the destruction of pre-Islamic statues of soldiers inside of Iran: http://irandefence.net/showthread.php?t=67002
Sassan, thanks for the laugh.
citing Christopher Hitchens on morality.
for your encore, could you have Britney Spears provide us with some tips on graceful feminine behavior, and Leona Helmsley counsel us that paying taxes is a patriotic duty?
________________
Rehmat, interesting that Weisenthal is scrubbing videos. Yesterday MyCatbirdSeat had a Tony Lawson video posted — had had for almost a year, but today it’s gone. However, yesterday the same video was not on youtube, but today is IS on youtube, with this message: The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as being potentially offensive or inappropriate. Viewer discretion is advised.
Zionism, like all con schemes, requires full control of information and concealment of its true intentions and practices. It’s been possible for zionists to place a heavy thumb on the scales of publishing, newspapers, radio, TV, Hollywood, but Internet is giving zionism a run for its money. Hence the smell of desperation in the ethernet.
Here’s another video that discusses some of the ideologues behind American Christian zionism :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYWlB64upSc
RSH: I’ve given up on Sassan, Wilbur, Scotty, and skip their contributions and related postings. I don’t have that kind of time for their underinformed wailing.
I find this interesting: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/pers-j27.shtml
Would you believe that history isn’t over, and the narrative in Eastern Europe continues? These movements will intersect with current movements in the Middle East, but how and when?
Christopher Hitchens on the immorality of religion and particular mention of the raping of virgin women in Iran before execution..:
http://youtu.be/GQcGXBo8HP8
Sassan says:
January 27, 2012 at 7:38 pm
Sassan, if you are so proud of Iranian culture, why do you speak in the jargon of those who are keen to destroy it, namely, zionists, who are also the people who are threatening to snatch from Iran’s rightful possession ancient and priceless clay tiles now on loan to University of Chicago. :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Persian_antiquities_crisis
How is it that your pride in Iranian heritage and in the Cyrus Cylinder is not expressed by demanding that the British museum permanently return the cylinder to Iran, rather than persisting in Elginism by exerting imperial power to tell Iran when it may and may not have custody of its own cultural artifact?
fyi,
“I do not understand why you care so much about this.”
Fair criticism.
I really don’t care. I confess that I don’t follow the situation in Syria — not because I don’t care what happens there, but rather because I don’t think much reliable information comes out of there from either side (and because paying attention to many things often means that you understand nothing very well). I got upset because it appeared to me that Scott was trying to peddle a defective video as solid evidence of what it purported to show. I later learned I’d been mistaken to argue the video hadn’t been recorded in Syria (though that didn’t make the video itself any less defective in that regard). That didn’t change my view of Scott’s effort — it just softened my disgust a bit.
But you’re right that I shouldn’t have bothered in the first place. Scott will never change. He seems to believe in the truth of whatever information he receives that supports his views, and so he at least deserves credit for sincerity. Like all of us to some extent, he accepts on faith a very great deal of whatever he hears from people who agree with his views. My real complaint is that he’s almost entirely uncritical of his sources. Almost never have I heard him express doubt about a source who supplies agreeable information; almost never have I heard him accept information supporting a position with which he disagrees. Again, we’re all like that to some extent, more so than we’re willing to admit. Scott’s real fault is that he carries this to an unacceptable extreme.
On the occasion of the International Holocaust Memorial Day, Simon Wiesenthal Center has announced that it has succeeded in forcing U-Tube to remove ten of the videos prepared by Iranian website Holocartoons.
The site was launched by Iranian cartoonist Maziar Bijani in 2010. Bijani uses animated video cartoons to show how Zionists have been exploiting the so-called murder of six million Jews by Nazis to carry-on their ethnic-cleansing of Muslim and Christian Palestinians which played no part in the genocide of European Jews. In reality, Nazis were mostly Christians while over 150,000 German Jews and Zionist collaborated with the Nazis. Watch video below.
The Holocartoons are available in Persian, Arabic, English, Spanish, and French languages.
Simon Wiesenthal Center has called upon UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon and other ZOGs leaders to use 27th January Holocaust memorial ceremony at the United Nations headquarter in New York to denounce the Islamic regime in Tehran for not believing the Zionists’ narrative of the “Six Million Died”.
The Jewish-owned Facebook has altered the site page on Simon Wiesenthal Center demand.
Turkey has become the first Muslim country to commemmorate the International Holocaust Day by showing French director Claude Lanzmann’s ten-hour-long movie Shoah.
http://rehmat2.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/you-tube-removes-holocartoons-video/
Eric A. Brill says: January 27, 2012 at 10:04 pm
I do not understand why you care so much about this.
There is war waged for the control of Syria; Axis Powers, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabai have their agents there; Iranians have their own.
Whether this particular group of individuals are agenst of the Iranian government is immaterial.
One would hope that the Iranian planners are doing all they can to defeat the Axis Powers in Syria.
This will be a bloody and ruthless war.
For Mr. Unknown Unknown and other assorted Pharisee Muslims
(in Persian)
Mr. Khomeini’s views on other religions
ديدگاه امام خميني (ره) درباره پيروان اديان
http://www.pajoohe.com/fa/index.php?Page=definition&UID=36430
Irshad says: January 27, 2012 at 7:14 pm
Mr. Khomeini broke with Ghazzali on:
1- Ijtihad (Ghazzali beings against it)
2- In his cultivation of Kalam & Philosophy (Ghazzali beings against both)
3- In his indentification of monarchy (auotarchy) as being incompatibe with Islam
4- In his warning that Legalism is not sufficient – the inner Truth and Meaning of Islami (and its piety) must be cultivated (Ghazzali urged legal conformance as being sufficient)
5- Formulation of the Expediency Theses: Precepts of Shria can be suspended for the achievement of gains by the Islamic Order
6- People have the final word on their political rule and the state – not the Ruler
Richard,
Bear in mind that I was mistaken (and acknowledged that to Scott) to stress that the video didn’t prove it had been recorded in Syria (though that was true of the video), since that fact had been established independently of the video. That weakens my complaints. The complaints I made after acknowledging that oversight are still good, but I don’t think it’s worth trying to separate those from the earlier ones. So I think it’s best not to repeat my comments on Scott’s website. Frankly, I’m pretty sure his followers come here anyway, especially when Scott is embroiled in a dispute with people here.
Irshad says: January 27, 2012 at 7:14 pm
The Security of Life and Property
The Protection of Honor
The Sanctity and Security of Private Life
The Security of Personal Freedom
The Right to Protest Against Tyranny
Freedom of Expression
Freedom of Association
Freedom of Conscience and Conviction
Protection of Religious Sentiments
Protection from Arbitrary Imprisonment
The Right to Basic Necessities of Life
Equality Before Law
Rulers Not Above the Law
The Right to Avoid Sin
The Right to Participate in the Affairs of State
Canning: “At 2:51am you claim the US pursued sanctions against Iraq to make it ripe for attack. I think this is a serious twisting of the events. In fact, the sanctions were effective, and Iraq had destroyed its WMD. At no time could Iraq have put up an organised defence, in years following the Gulf War.”
So: 1) you’re claiming that the purpose of the sanctions was SOLELY to force Iraq to destroy it’s actual WMD programs…despite the fact that the sanctions went on for ten years… And despite the fact that the sanctions almost entirely affected the Iraqi population, you imply that they were therefore both effective and necessary.
2) Once Saddam did so, he then somehow managed to convince the US that he hadn’t, so therefore it wasn’t the fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney forced Tenet to fake the evidence that caused the Iraq war, but Saddam…somehow…managed to convince the UNSCOM inspectors that he still had stuff when in fact the UNSCOM inspectors were clear that he did NOT have anything left. And therefore George Bush was blameless…
In essence, once again, you blame the victim for what was clear-cut US aggression.
You really are an idiot. You’ll say anything no matter how stupid to support your “blame Iran for enriching to 20% for the crisis” nonsense.
ehleel says: January 27, 2012 at 8:01 pm
مهتری گر به کام شیر در است
شو خطر کن ز کام شیر بجوی
یا بزرگی و عز و نعمت و جاه
یا چو مردانت مرگ رویاروی
Scott: ” Free Syrian Army is in command of the abduction — and the display of the Iranians on video — and that this is not the operation of a “maverick” brigade;”
The Free Syrian Army IS a “maverick brigade” according to most of the legitimate Syrian dissident groups.
“it establishes that the priority is not whether the Iranians are in fact soldiers,”
Then what was all the BS about “murdering women and childen” and the subsequent claim that they were “snipers”?
It’s not about a “priority”, you moron, it’s about any basic truth at all to the FSA claims – which you uncritically accepted.
Beyond that, this “priority” BS is precisely what’s wrong with you. You’re a slimy, smarmy, double-talking, untruthful, lame punk and that comes across with every word you type. I’d rather read tripe from Sassan than the smarmy crap you post.
Not to mention that you’re still a “link leech” which makes you impolite as well.
And it’s really irritating me that anyone here is bothering to engage you because it will just encourage your lame attempts to disrupt this site.
Fuck off, moron.
To add: we have nothing except to be proud of the fact that we have helped get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the fact that Afghan women and little girls now have the opportunity to work and receive an education rather than being stoned to death. Shame on you for supporting the status quo as you do under the brutality of the Islamic Republic and other terrorist Islamic regimes.
kooshy: There are not 75 million like you. The Iranian people are united against the barbaric and terrorist regime which has ruined our once great nation. You should be ashamed of yourself in having the gall to call yourself an Iranian and claim that Iran is a “majority elected country” when the terrorists that impede upon our homeland and our people do it through terror, oppression, and religious rule and care NOTHING for Iran, or Iran’s future. The lives of Iranians or the history of Iranian being NOTHING to them – only their perverse religious and terrorist agenda.
Kooshy: Eric Would you mind if I posted all your comments on this video and Scott’s related replies in one long post on Scott’s blog?”
Add mine, too – especially the ones where I call him an idiot…
Scott: “European Union sanctions on Iranian oil will extend to about 95 percent of tankers because they are insured under rules governed by European law.”
And five minutes later, Iran, China and who knows who else will immediately form well-capitalized insurance companies to take up the slack. This is a great business opportunity – since insurance is nearly as big a scam as banking – wish I had the money to invest.
However, oil is oil – and insurance is…well, insurance, not oil. So the tankers will set sail regardless.
Sasan
I am Iranian and very proud of my culture and history, there are 75 million more like me who don’t wish to see likes of you and Scott Lucas do to them and their country what you did to poor Iraqis and Afghanis for Oil and Israel, I have no shame to support the majority elected government of Iran in her struggle for maintaining Iran’s independence and preventing Iran to once again become a client state of a super power.
That you can call whatever way you wish, but bank on my words because Iran is not Iraq. Considering Iran’s long struggle to maintain her independence against a hegemonic superpower your acts and deeds to me equates to a traitor or a foreign agent like Scott Lucas.
another article by general alaie in today’s jomhori eslami daily:
http://www.jomhourieslami.com/1390/13901108/13901108_03_jomhori_islami_akhbar_dakheli_0012.html
Last year, Israeli Rabbi Baruch Efrati told a questioner that Jews are permitted to pray in mosque but not in a church as the later houses idols.
“It would be better to pray in a mosque and do so with meaning and after the sun rises, rather than at home, at dawn or at the airport and without meaning. Of course this solution is not perfect, but it’s the best option. There is no prohibition in praying in mosques,” – Israeli daily YNet, February 13, 2011.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/rabbi-jews-can-pray-in-mosques/
فیلم اعترافات 5 ایرانی متهم به ارتباط
با سپاه و شرکت در سرکوب های سوریه
it’s six minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hlgPMlklJSU
بود و نبود جمهوری اسلامی به مرزی نزدیک شده که عبور از آن به شهامتی در حد پذیرش اشتباهات از سوی آقای خامنه ای و ارجاع وضع بحرانی کشور و نظام حاکم و تصمیم گیری کلان به یک شورای ملی است. شورائی که شاید ایشان هم بتواند عضو آن باشد، اما باید بپذیرد که دوران یکه تازی و “فصل الخطاب” و ادعای فرزانگی و معظمی گذشته است. او می تواند به قول هاشمی رفسنجانی باز هم “حرف کسی را گوش نکند” و یا بقول آیت الله مهدوی کنی رئیس مجلس خبرگان “به لجبازی خود ادامه بدهد”، اما کشتی نظام به آن صخره ای نزدیک می شود که در برخورد با آن، نه از “تاک” نشان می ماند و نه از “تاک نشان”. کسی نگران موقعیت و آینده ایشان و بیت معظم و کشتی بقول ایشان “استوار نظام” و بقول شیخ مهدی کروبی “قایق سرگردان نظام” نیست. بلکه همه نگران آن فاجعه ای هستند که مردم از هم اکنون خود را با نگرانی آماده آن می کنند. به گزارش و عکس یورش مردم به فروشگاه ها، تجمع مردم در برابر بانک ها و آشفتگی دولت برای تعیین نرخ ارز و دهها پدیده دیگر که ساعت به ساعت بر شمار آنها افزوده می شود نگاهی بیاندازید. رجزخوانی های فرماندهان سپاه و امام جمعه هائی که مثل طوطی از هم تقلید می کنند و بیانات مقام معظم فرزانه در برابر آنها که جمع می کنند و جلوی ایشان روی زمین می نشانند و اقدامات مدبرانه فرزند نیمه برومند ایشان “مجتبی” به کمک تیم سردار ذوالقدر، سردار نقدی، سردار طائب، ابراهیم رئیسی معاون اول قوه قضائیه و میرحجازی و “آقا وحید” منشیان رهبر و… هیچکدام دیگر چاره کار نیست. همچنان که ادامه پرکردن زندان ها و انتخابات شبه انتصابات چاره کار نیست. چاره کار همان شهامتی است که آیت الله خمینی برای اعلام پایان جنگ با عراق از خود نشان داد. شهامت پذیرش همان پیشنهاد سیاستمدارانه و دوراندیشانه ای که هاشمی رفسنجانی در نماز جمعه خود پس از کودتای 22 خرداد ارائه داد و بعدها محمد خاتمی بارها تکرار کرد. او هرگز توان و جسارت و مشروعیت مردمی و مذهبی آقای خمینی را برای پائین آوردن شتری که خود به بالای کوه برده ندارد و به همین دلیل، هیچ چاره ای جز برپائی یک شورا برای رهبری جمهوری اسلامی نیست. امروز چنین نشود، فردا این امکان هم باقی نخواهد ماند. حتی افرادی که میتوانند در این مقطع فکری برای پائین آوردن شتر حاکمیت نظامی از بالای کوه نقش آفرین باشند، ممکن است فردا دیگر نتوانند چنین نقشی ایفاء کنند. آن توصیه ای که درباره سردار علائی و امثال او در سپاه شده و ترمز امثال شریعتمداری در کیهان را کشید، آیا مقدمه رفتن به سوی تعقل است؟
Kooshy: you are a delusional food. Anyone who disagrees with your support of the terrorist Islamic Republic in your mind is somehow a Jew. For the record, I was “born” a Muslim (fortunately most Iranians are fake Muslims as it is) and was born in Iran but am an atheist/rationalist. My priority first and foremost is in the interest of mankind as the survival and advancement of humanity is not a guarantee – particularly in the age of apocalyptic weaponry. Second, is a free Iran and one that values that some of us take for granted in the west, particularly those of western liberalism, freedom, and democracy.
Again, that emblem/stamp is clearly one that identifies one as a member of the Revolutionary Guards. You want to deny this, that is fine; but it simply enables all clear minded and rational individuals to see you as the regime apologist that you seem to clearly be.
Sorry for correction due to my usual typos
January 27, 2012 at 6:53 pm
Wrong, depends on which branch of armed forces military service you served Sepah or Artesh. You have a limited knowledge of Iran, Iranians and Persian language makes me think that you might have received a limited information from prior generation who migrated and passed some limited information and language skills to a 2nd generation. With that in mind you sound like a 2nd generation Iranian-Israelis who he thinks is helping Israel to survive. This I get from the way you pronounced “Sanjak”, which is common with those who speak ibri as their main language, much like when an Arab wants to say “Sangak” since they can’t make the sound GA they naturally substitute it with JA. So Azarbaygan (sacred fire) becomes Azerbaijan.
I may have to send you a bill for educating you on Persian and Iranian, who do I send it to Manusheh Amir or Scott Lucas.
Irshad: Human rights. The human rights first declared by Cyrus The Great over 2500 years ago and in this age the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as put forth by the United Nations.
Learn them: http://youtu.be/0MaoLZFPg7k
While some like fyi think they are god given, others believe they are simply “natural rights”. In either case, they are intrinsic to every human being.
January 27, 2012 at 6:53 pm
Wrong, depends on which branch of armed forces military service you served Sepah or Artesh. You limited knowledge of Iran, Iranians and Persian language makes me think that you might have received a limited information from prior generation information who migrated and passed some limited information and language skills to a 2nd generation. Withy that you sound like 2nd generation Iranian-Israelis who he thinks is helping Israel to survive. This I get from the way you pronounced “Sanjak”, which common with those who speaks ibri as their main language, much like when an Arab wants to say “Sangak” since they don’t poses GA. So they naturally substitute to JA. So Azarbaigan (sacred fire) becomes Azerbaijan.
I may have to send you a bill for educating you on Persian and Iranian, who do I send it to Manusheh Amir or Scott Lucas.
fyi says:
“I believe individuals have intrinsic rights given to them by God.”
What are those rights in your opinnion?
Also you previously stated that Khomeini broke with Ghazali on 6 points – what were they?
kooshy: The identification cards have the stamp/emblem of the Revolutionary Guards. Regular Iranians do not have this identification/emblem.
Again, the link of the screen shot which I took for everyone can be seen here: http://www.mediafire.com/i/?1495uw9wc11zwd0
fyi,
A fact you need to bear in mind: more than half of campaign finance, for Democrats, in national elections. comes from Jews.
fyi,
Rich and powerful Jews prevent the US from forcing Israel out of the West Bank and Golan Heights.
Eisenhower forced Israel out of the Sinai, after 1956 war.
Carter forced Israel out of the Sinai in 1979.
G H W Bush wanted to force Israel out of West Bank and GH, but Jewish opposition helped cause his defeat in 1992.
With the US Congress controlled by stooges of Aipac, how can Obama get the job done? Answer: he cannot.
R S Hack,
At 1130pm Jan. 26th you claimed that “Canning …blames the victim and then finds excuses for the aggressor.”
Are you referring to my statements that Iran blundered when, in early June, it announced its intention to treble production of 20% U?
You are of course aware Iran several months later offered to stop enriching to 20%.
Clarification of your point would be welocme.
James Canning says: January 27, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Rubbish!
Americans are not stupid, they know what the religious war in Palestine is doing to them in the world and among Muslims.
If they knew how to end it, they would have done so.
They have lost the control they once enjoyed.
And if they cannot control a communal war and setlle it in small place called palestine they surely won’t be able to execute any grand strategic realignment or change that deviates from the status quo that they have enjoyed since the end of WWII.
R S Hack,
You mentioned Richard Siverstein’s contention that “Iran’s implacable determination to pursue a nuclear option” – - meaning, according to Silverstein, that Iran in fact is getting ready to build nukes.
Not true, accoding to Amano of the IAEA.
R S Hack,
At 2:51am you claim the US pursued sanctions against Iraq to make it ripe for attack. I think this is a serious twisting of the events. In fact, the sanctions were effective, and Iraq had destroyed its WMD. At no time could Iraq have put up an organised defence, in years following the Gulf War.
Sadly, arrogance and ignorance on the part of Saddam Hussein played a large role in helping to set up the disastrous Iraq War. Time and again, he played into the hands of the warmongers.
Scott Lucas,
Ayatollah Khamenei and many MANY others have repeatedly said that. You hear bits and pieces from people and you think you’ve made a discovery.
When you write “carefully worded article”, you intentionally mislead your readers into thinking that something extraordinary has happened. However, the fact remains that you know extremely little about Iran and with your little knowledge you make up big stories.
I promise you that the Islamic Republic will still be around long after your funding dries up.
kooshy,
I agree with you that the US has botched its programme in Afghanistan by being gratuitously hostile toward Iran. Thanks, ISRAEL LOBBY.
“Israel refuses to give US early notice of strike on Iran”, in Sunday Times Jan. 22nd. Obama asked Netanyahu for advance notice, and General Dempsey asked Ehud Barak. Nope. 12 hours, no more. So US would have more difficulty blocking an attack.
Not that I expect Israel to launch it.
kooshy,
The objective of the UN in fighting the Kroean War was to eject the North Korean army from South Korea. Obviously this was achieved.
The foolish objective of the US in the Vietnam War was to prevent reunification of the country under the communists. This of course happened, but it did no injury to the US.
Eric,
Alaei’s latest statement was carefully worded, with respect to not offering any allusion to the Supreme Leader.
“Are you surprised that the Iranian government has made no move to stop Alaei from criticizing Khamenei?”
Elements in the regime did make moves to halt the criticism. The complication has been that, with divisions within the regime, there have been leading figures who have defended Alaei against the pressure.
And it is notable that there have been mixed reactions over challenging statements by Ali Motahari, who criticised Iran’s move towards “Constitutional democracy”, and by Emad Afrough, who said on State TV that the people have a right to question the Supreme Leader and that, if the Leader did not give satisfactory answers, he could be dismissed.
Best,
S.
Eric,
“I think we’ve all seen more than our share of televised ‘confessions’ by prisoners held at gunpoint. Few if any serious observers put much stock in them, and I’d be surprised and disappointed to learn that you do.”
I don’t, whether those “confessions” are extracted in Syria or in other countries.
“I’m not sure what you intend to accomplish by publishing such gunpoint confessions — other than to encourage more kidnappings.”
With respect, if you read through our coverage, you might find that we have been out front in establishing the story and thus the likelihood — contrary to others in mainstream media who have incomplete and even distorted accounts — that these were engineers who are being used as propaganda objects and/or hostages to get the release of a Free Syrian Army commander.
S.
Scott Lucas,
You are really sad. Your garbage can’t even be called propaganda.
Liz says:
January 27, 2012 at 4:58 pm
No Liz, I think they got a marching order to create a perception of instability before the parliament elections in Iran, is the same buildup before the elections of 09, a basic desperation move due to lack of options and creativity which is trickling down to their level by incompetence of the planers in Langley.
Scott writes:
“Now Alaei has put out another statement, in Jomhouri Eslami, about dictatorships. This one, however, is carefully worded to avoid accusations that the former commander is challenging Ayatollah Khamenei. He states that dictatorships have come to an end, referring to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and continues that “dictators cannot rule with tyranny”.”
That’s “carefully worded?” Sounds pretty harsh to me — just as harsh as some of the scathing criticism one can read on Mousavi’s website (kaleme.com) (which, I might add, has not been closed down any of the many dozens of times I’ve checked it in the past 2+ years).
Are you surprised that the Iranian government has made no move to stop Alaei from criticizing Khamenei?
Scott,
I’ve since discovered that Iran’s government has previously confirmed the engineers’ kidnapping, so I stand corrected on that. Frankly, I haven’t been paying much attention to goings-on in Syria, since what comes from both sides is difficult or impossible to verify, and whatever comes from any other source is just second-hand, ultimately derived from one or the other of those unverifiable sources. But the Iranian government has no apparent reason to confirm the kidnappings if they didn’t occur.
It’s another question, of course — and a much more important question — whether their confessions to having murdered women and children are reliable. If I were an Iranian soldier captured in Syria and I had actually murdered Syrian women and children, I doubt I’d voluntarily admit it. I probably would if I’d been tortured, of course, but such a confession wouldn’t be reliable.
I think we’ve all seen more than our share of televised “confessions” by prisoners held at gunpoint. Few if any serious observers put much stock in them, and I’d be surprised and disappointed to learn that you do. That being so, I’m not sure what you intend to accomplish by publishing such gunpoint confessions — other than to encourage more kidnappings.
Liz says:
January 27, 2012 at 4:58 pm
I think so dear Liz poor guys .
Scott Lucas/Sassan,
Have you been warned by your government that your funding may be cut?
You have suddenly become hyperactive again.
Sassan says:
January 27, 2012 at 4:05 pm
What makes you trust that the abducted workers on the picture you post are the engineers rather than the picture on the story I linked? Do you have a credible proof that you can link and share with us that indeed the persons on the alleged video who show their mandatory military draft completion card (like the ones provided by IDF) which every male young Iranian in their age supposed to have even if proved the cards are authentic. Young Iranian male to obtain a passport must have mandatory draft completion card and need to carry with them all the time same was true for me during the Shah’s period before I was permitted to leave the country.
Scott Lucas,
You are really a fool. You can’t read Farsi so you rely on pro-western Iranians to mislead you. The commanders never said such a thing and he rejected the claim that the article had anything to do with the IRI.
Keep dreaming about regime change.
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
2119 GMT: Warning the Supreme Leader. Earlier this month Hossein Alaei, the former Revolutionary Guards commander, caused a stir with an article implicitly warning the Supreme Leader against the consequences of repression. Twelve Guards commanders called Alaei an agent of the enemy and an angry crowd gathered outside his house and defaced it, while other former commanders and some conservative politicians defended him.
Now Alaei has put out another statement, in Jomhouri Eslami, about dictatorships. This one, however, is carefully worded to avoid accusations that the former commander is challenging Ayatollah Khamenei. He states that dictatorships have come to an end, referring to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and continues that “dictators cannot rule with tyranny”.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
Zbeig on charlie rose;
“For the first time in all of human history, almost all of humanity is politically conscious, politically awake, politically restless, politically frustrated, that is new.”
Georg Soros
“In America he predicts riots on the streets that will lead to a brutal clampdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties.
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
2059 GMT: The “Iranian Soldiers” in Syria. The Iranian Embassy in Syria’s Press attaché, Leva’a Roudbari, has declared that none of the seven Iranians held by the Free Syrian Army are in the military, “The kidnappers’ claims is baseless.”
Roudbari, in an interview with Syrian State TV, also appeared to say that two of the seven men would be released, “Iran welcomes the kidnappers’ decision to free two of the kidnapped engineers.”
In statements to Reuters (see 1932 GMT), members of the Free Syrian Army said that, while the first five Iranians seized were not engineers but were snipers assisting the Assad regime’s military, the two men who came to Syria to enquire about them were civilians.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
LMFAO @ the picture of the workers by Kooshy. Those are clearly NOT the same individuals as the Revolutionary Guards thugs captured by the Syrian Free Army.
Scott writes:
“In early January, about a week after the five Iranians were abducted the French magazine Paris Match published a two-page pictorial feature on the Iranians — four are visible — with the brigade commander “Abdul Razzaq Talas”. The photos of the men match up to those of the “engineers” in the Iranian publication Mehr (see 0727 GMT). Paris Match did not explain how it obtained the photograph, merely saying that the Iranians were suspected of being snipers supporting the Syrian military.”
Did the Paris Match article happen to mention where the unidentified provider of those photographs claimed they had been taken? Can one tell from looking at the photographs whether they were taken in Syria (as distinguished, for example, from a basement in someone’s home in Iran)?
Some analyst believe cold war was the reason that the US lost both wars in Korea and Vietnam, if true one can claim that the cold war with Iran is the reason US lost the war in Iraq and may result to also loose in Afghanistan, which already has and will eventually further reduce the US/west’s geopolitical standing in western Asia.
For Scott Lucas
1915 GMT: All options on the table, blah blah
1917 GMT: Israle is our best and only friend in the world
1918 GMT: All options on the table, blah blah
How about some proper debate in the land of the free, allow Ron Paul the same time and media exposure like the rest of the candidates I dare you.
Picture of 5 abducted Iranian electrical engineers in Syria, it all looks like they are in their work uniforms and inside a plant, and Professor Scotty is on another fishing trip before the parliamentary elections. Unfortunate for him and his desperate supporters the only way left for him to elevate US’s diminishing position in the region is to demonize Iran and the resistance block. Truly an act of desperation by his higher ups.
http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=293108
http://www.kayhannews.ir/901108/2.htm#other200
May be more help for our professor, ask somebody to translate, may help your site.
for the bad news professor;
Fitch downgrades credit ratings for 5 EU nations
http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action;jsessionid=3033ABC90E22CF54A710A24F028D3037?newsId=269832
the latest from syria
mass demonstrations;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gaWYdThzrw8
Scott Lucas says:
“There is a logical explanation for the posting of latest news from Iran here on RFI as well as on EA WorldView, but neither of you are close to it.”
Perhaps our delusional professor is about to lose his funding, hence the need to up his rant on RFI to gather some customers..
For anyone needing evidence that the individuals in the video Scotty posted are members of the Revolutionary Guards are provided the proof in the screenshot of their identification cards that I have provided.
The stamp/emblem of the Revolutionary Guards/Basiji is clearly visible for all to see..:
http://www.mediafire.com/i/?1495uw9wc11zwd0
Scott Lucas: Thank you for the information you provide as well as your hard work in covering the truth in regards to what is happening in Iran.
BiBiJon/Pirouz,
There is a logical explanation for the posting of latest news from Iran here on RFI as well as on EA WorldView, but neither of you are close to it.
S.
Latest from Iran — 27 January:
1932 GMT: The “Iranian Soldiers” in Syria. Reuters adds important information to the released video of five Iranians — engineers, according to Tehran; members of the Iranian military, according to the Free Syrian Army — seized in December.
Insurgents said two other men taken in a second abduction were civilians. That matches up to information from Iranian media early this month that two Iranians were seized when they went to Syria to resolve the situation of the first five captives.
A Free Syrian Army fighter said, “We will not release [the seven men] until the government stops its military operations against Homs and frees Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Harmoush.
Harmoush was the first senior Syrian military officer to defect to the opposition. Activists say he was kidnapped in Turkey and taken back to Syria, where he appeared on State TV retracting his criticism of the Assad regime. His whereabouts are unknown.
Another insurgent said, “If the regime refuses to negotiate with us, we will keep them (the hostages) with us and we will try to bring more (Iranians) as well.” And a third fighter confirmed that the FSA was holding the seven Iranians hostage.
An official FSA spokesman said he could not comment because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Reuters’ information is significant because, despite the dispute over the status of the Iranians: 1) it confirms that the released video is tied to the abduction of not just five but seven “engineers”; 2) it confirms that the Free Syrian Army is in command of the abduction — and the display of the Iranians on video — and that this is not the operation of a “maverick” brigade; 3) it establishes that the priority is not whether the Iranians are in fact soldiers, but whether they can be traded for Lieutenant Colonel Harmoush.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
Scott Lucas says:
January 27, 2012 at 2:26 pm
What evidence is there that there has been a miscarriage of justice?
BTW, Arnold, one of the tests of my de-escalation hypothesis is the new frequency of toe-rag-Scotty’s “news”.
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
1915 GMT: Execution Watch. Sources have told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that the Iranian Supreme Court has upheld the death sentences of two Kurdish prisoners, Zanyar Moradi and Loghman Moradi.
The two brothers were sentenced to public hanging on 22 December 2010 for “moharebeh” (war against God) and the murder of the son of Marivan’s Friday Prayer leader.
A source said Loghman Moradi told his family that he was told by prison authorities of the decision and that this was not in writing. The lawyer for the Moradis said that he had not been formally served with the decision and that he will be travelling to Tehran to follow up the case at the Supreme Court.
The Moradis have written that they were tortured and forced to make false confessions.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
R S Hack,
I think you go well over the top when you claim the US wants to make Iran a “vassal state”. That obviously was not what the Clinton administration had in mind, when it wanted to improve US relations with Iran back in the 1990s.
Draft report by the Institute for Science and International Security, according to Reuters, says Iran is unlikely to move towards building a nuclear weapon this year.
Iran would not become a “vassal state” if it ceased producting 20% U.
Gideon Rachman says the Iranian nuclear issue is a hot topic at Davos this year. Those interested should read “Debate on Iran’s nuclear programme is hot ticket” in FT January 27th.
I think Iran suffers from not participating in these conferences.
Unknown Unknowns,
Isn’t plutonium 239 produced from uranium 238?
R S Hack,
You linked some comments by Gen. Martin Dempsey from Jan. 26th, including that the Israelis “see that threat [Iran] differently than we do. It’s existential to them.”
Dempsey surely is aware some Israeli security experts say the claim of “existential threat” is a false one, used to manipulate public opinion in Israel and the US.
R S Hack,
You seem to have found a good illustration of extreme ignorance or foolishness on part of “US investors”, if 70% think war with Iran would only briefly cause a rise in oil prices. Propaganda for Israeli warmongers et al? I think so.
Unknown Unknowns,
The foolish American effort to build a “missile shield” in Europe is a programme supported by proponents of idiotic levels of “defence” spending. And it is supported the the ISRAEL LOBBY. In part, it is a subtle scheme of defamation against Iran. And Vladimor Putin rightly sees it as injuring Russo-American relations.
Just one more way the ISRAEL LOBBY undermines national security interests of the American people.
fyi,
Most countries closely following Israel/Palestine say that the US obviously has the power to force a solution through. But US power is compromised almost entirely by the ISRAEL LOBBY.
Kathleen,
Brzezinski opposed the illegal and idiotic US/UK invasion of Iraq, and of course he opposes a repeat of such idiocy, with Iran.
Kathleen,
Who was the guest on Diane Rehm’s show Jan. 27th, who you say said inflammtory things about Iran (apparently without challenge)?
Eric
Would you mind if I posted all your comments on this video and Scott’s related replies in one long post on Scott’s blog?
Amazing, isn’t it? A full fledged news site editor finds the need to promote and defend propaganda clips on an American policy advocacy site. What does that tell you, folks?
kooshy,
“Would you allow all Eric’s comments on this video which without monitoring was posted here on RFI to be copied and posted in one comment on EA without being subject to your usual censoring, if so I am willing to do that.”
Sure.
(Just for the record — in EA’s 3+ years of existence, only one individual has been banned from posting, and that was because of a threat of illegal action.)
S.
1730 GMT: Sanctions Watch. A significant note from Bloomberg explains the potential impact of the new European restrictions on Tehran’s trade:
***European Union sanctions on Iranian oil will extend to about 95 percent of tankers because they are insured under rules governed by European law. The International Group of P&I Clubs insures all but 5 percent of the global tanker fleet and its 13 member clubs follow European rules to participate in the claim-sharing pool, said Andrew Bardot, the London-based secretary and executive officer. Carrying Iranian oil would invalidate the ships’ cover against risks including spills and collisions, he said.
“Any EU-regulated insurer will not be able to provide insurance to cover any ship engaged in the carriage of Iranian oil and petrochemicals to the EU and elsewhere,” Bardot said by phone yesterday. “We have already notified ship owners of the effect on their trading activities and our ability to cover.”
While the embargo on Iranian oil only covers the EU’s 27 member states, the extent of the region’s role in insuring ships will curb trade globally….
Vessels carrying oil from the nation will have to use “questionable” insurance, said Simon Schnorr, the London-based marine client director at Aon Risk Solutions, a unit of the world’s largest insurance broker….
“The EU ban on related insurance and re-insurance means that owners or operators with no EU link who seek to transport Iranian oil will be caught even if there is no EU element to the shipment itself,” Michele White, Intertanko’s general counsel, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday. “This is now a highly restrictive and volatile environment in which we feel our members cannot trade without risk of breaching EU or indeed the myriad of other sanctions against Iran.”
Ship owners will struggle to find insurance that doesn’t comply with EU law and whose provider has the funds needed to meet the “standard cover provision” of $1 billion for pollution liabilities, Schnorr said. Ships without valid insurance would be barred from entering most ports, he said.***
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
Even here in LA, among green expatriate Iranian friends I sense a satisfaction for Iran to retaliate in kind, that could be a blowback to the intended outcome.
Lawmaker: Iran to Stop Oil Sales to Europe This Week
TEHRAN (FNA) – Iran’s Parliament will approve a bill on Sunday requiring the government to immediately halt oil exports to Europe, a prominent lawmaker said after the European Union complied with the United States’ hostile policies against Iran and decided to ban oil imports from the country.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9010172639
fyi: I have gained a new profound respect for you.
While we may not agree on political and international issues much, the most important thing we value in free societies and in those societies in which people strive for freedom, is an exchange of thoughts and ideas without the fear of persecution. And this includes the rights of EVERYONE including believers and non-believers, men and women, straight and gay.
There can be no justification to the fact that anyone who professes to be atheist is executed in Iran as well as anyone being “born” Muslim and leaving their “faith of origin”. There can also be denying to the fact that women are oppressed in Iran (as you mentioned) including the fact that the testimony of women is worth 1/2 of a man in court. There can be no doubt that gays who are open are also executed.
Being born into this world gives us intrinsic values of human rights as you mentioned; and no religion, culture, or nation has any right to oppose these rights. Nations who are against the intrinsic values of mankind, deserve to be in direct conflict with the rest of us who value these intrinsic rights.
And to point out, one of the greatest Iranians to have ever graced this Earth, Omar Khayyam, was an atheist who valued humanity and disdained the poisons of religion.
Scotty Boy says, “I am opposed to military conflict and would also like to see a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue”
What nuclear issue? What is the issue exactly when the NIE & the SEcretary of Defense have stated that there is no evidence that Iran is engaged in any illegal activity? What are you talking about? Oh I forgot, you are just as crazy, schitzophrenic and/ or thirsty for innocent Iranian blood as your elected representatives, you nasty little Boy.
Scotty BOy says: “I have personal opinions but EA WorldView’s “agenda”, first and foremost, is to bring out the news, especially from areas where there may be restrictions on information and which may be beyond the view of mainstream media.”
1. Don’t flatter yourself. YOur views are nothing if not mainstream.
2. What do you do in a country such as your own where no matter how much news you “bring out” it doesnt make a damn but of difference, because the oligarchs have the interest of the 1% or so of the population so sown up that nothing, not voting, not free and unrestricted access to media, nothing, will change that status quo (other than self-destruction)? What do you do then? Why don’t you go and concentrate on the problems of your own country and leave mine alone? Everyone in the Middle East hates your type: arrogant imperialist blood-sucking and mass-murdering scum.
Fiorangela says:
January 27, 2012 at 7:28 am
I better give that one a bide birth and stay away, as I am sure I am in enough trouble already with my rude, crude and socially unacceptable comments. Suffice it to say that were I to talk about Scotty Boy’s groove, and how it is overstuffed with leftover Scottissue, I’d end up somewhere where the sun don’t shine.
BiBiJon:
I agree with you. This Scotty Boytruly disgusts me. He talks about a (supposed) shortage of rice in Kermanshah with glee, rather than feeling ashamed that he has been part of the cheerleading team for collective punishment of the innocent. He is white trash on ice without the ice: he shtinks.
Rd. says:
January 26, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Kathleen says:
Zbig is going to be on the Diane Rehm show in 5 minutes talking about his new book “Strategic Vision”
he was also on charlie rose last night.. as one of obama’s original handlers, one has to wonder, why he is making the rounds?
http://www.charlierose.com/
I think he is trying to throw up a bit of a road block. Warns us of the sinking US ship. That Israel could give a rats ass. Sink the US ship further by attacking IRan.
He is going to be on CSpan on Saturday. Book TV.
TODAY FRIDAY DURING THE DIANE REAH HOUR DIANE ALLOWED HER GUEST TO SAY LOTS OF INFLAMMATORY THINGS ABOUT IRAN
Eric A. Brill says:
January 27, 2012 at 11:39 am
I wonder if Professor Scott would allow all comments you posted here on RFI regarding this subject video (he posted a link here yesterday) to be also posted on his blog EA.
Scott here is a question for you
Would you allow all Eric’s comments on this video which without monitoring was posted here on RFI to be copied and posted in one comment on EA without being subject to your usual censoring, if so I am willing to do that.
Scott writes:
“Or you could actually read and evaluate beyond your initial assumption that the video was not shot in Syria.”
Read what, Scott?
“You’ll need to take that one to the Brigade of the Free Syrian Army who shot the video.”
I’ll take your word for it that the Free Syrian Army shot the video, Scott. Regrettably, that’s the only basis I have for believing that.
Photi,
Re encouraging diplomacy:
1. Gather and critique information, disseminating it as widely as possible, even when authorities try to block access to it
2. Start with respect for all perspectives, discarding pre-conceptions and prejudices about the “other”
3. Negotiate all possibilities.
4. If those with direct control of diplomacy cannot be moved, set up alternative networks to accomplish it.
5. Never give up.
S.
Scott,
“Harmful. And they will be exploited by those within the Islamic Republic who do not want a diplomatic resolution.”
Iran should worry about Iran. I am speaking to you one American to another. What can we do to encourage diplomacy?
BiJon says:
January 27, 2012 at 10:08 am
Tharoor, writing in Time, left out the Indian Minister’s qualifying phrase “As for now” when he said India would not cut back imports for Iran oil.
The rogue story of India paying with gold for Iran oil started with DEBKA, the website linked to Israel’s intelligence services. There is no evidence from Indian or Iranian officials, who are pushing for part-payment in Yen, that this is being pursued.
S.
Scott Lucas says: January 27, 2012 at 10:16 am
The United States is not capable of forging a diplomatic solution.
[Just like the fact that the United States does not have the ability to end the War in Palestine.]
US internal politics, in regards to Iran and at this juncture, reminds me very much of the Iran’s internal politics between 1980-1990 in regards to intercourse with the United States.
Eric,
“I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”
Or you could actually read and evaluate beyond your initial assumption that the video was not shot in Syria.
“Even so, next time, keep in mind my suggestion about filming Syrian videos in Syria, with real live Syrians sprinkled here and there.”
You’ll need to take that one to the Brigade of the Free Syrian Army who shot the video.
S.
Scott replied to Photi,
“Personally, since you ask the specific question, I am opposed to military conflict and would also like to see a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue, which I believe is used as a pawn on both sides to obscure other motives and issues.”
Scott,
Photi asked you some serious questions that call for a meaningful response. This is insulting to him.
Photi,
“Are the most recent sanctions spearheaded by America against the Iranian people hurtful or helpful towards the establishment of diplomacy between America and Iran?”
Harmful. And they will be exploited by those within the Islamic Republic who do not want a diplomatic resolution.
S.
Latest from the real world
“India’s Oil Minister, S. Jaipal Reddy, confirmed that his country had no intention of halting imports from Iran. India draws some 12% of all its foreign crude from Iran, the second biggest exporter to the oil-thirsty Asian giant after Saudi Arabia. Moreover, as international sanctions tighten around corporations doing business with Iran, it appears the Indians and perhaps the Chinese will explore paying the Iranians with gold, the Japanese yen or even in part with their own national currencies. Call it one more episode of the post-American world: considerable regional powers are now attempting to unhinge bilateral trade ties off the U.S. dollar or the euro.”
Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/01/26/to-confront-iran-will-the-u-s-risk-relations-with-india/#ixzz1kfh3tbXY
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
1430 GMT: The “Iranian Soldiers” in Syria. EA’s James Miller makes a significant discovery — this is not the first time that a unit in the Free Syrian Army, the “Al Farouk Brigade”, has displayed the five Iranian “engineers”/”soldiers”.
In early January, about a week after the five Iranians were abducted the French magazine Paris Match published a two-page pictorial feature on the Iranians — four are visible — with the brigade commander “Abdul Razzaq Talas”. The photos of the men match up to those of the “engineers” in the Iranian publication Mehr (see 0727 GMT).
Paris Match did not explain how it obtained the photograph, merely saying that the Iranians were suspected of being snipers supporting the Syrian military.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html#1430
Scott,
“The five Iranians who were put on camera are the five Iranian engineers who were abducted while working in Homs in December.”
I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it. Even so, next time, keep in mind my suggestion about filming Syrian videos in Syria, with real live Syrians sprinkled here and there.
Sakineh Bagoom says: January 26, 2012 at 10:56 pm
I was being ironic; Mr. Canning regretting that iran could not benefot from WWII.
But I also stand by my earlier statements: ultimately, the fault was with Iranian leaders (Muslim leaders) over 20 generations.
Several hundred years ago, Muslims put their minds on auto-pilot.
Next, as the centuries progressed, the “Cohesive Traditional” society obliterated free thought among Muslims.
And the free spirits could only find refuge among teh Sufi ranks.
[There was a continuing tradition of philosophy that survived - just barely - in Iran. But that was all there was in all of Islamodom.]
This shell was cracked open by the Christian states from the 17-th century onward.
But its bitter lessons has not yet sunk into the heads of very many Muslims.
That their tradional society and the theoretical foundations of it are dead.
I recall the late Mr. Khomeini once stating to a mullah: “The way you speak, we all should go and live in tents.”
And Taliban are another perfect example of Muslim failure in dealing with the world.
There are many more such examples.
“How keen is the regime to show that the European step is meaningless? Press TV — with 5 of its 7 top Iran stories on oil sanctions — brings out an expert to declare that the EU’s sanctions are “less than meets the eye”, as Tehran has “contingency plans”.”
Conversely, how keen is heeeeeeeeeeeeeeer-comes-scotty to show that Iran is hurting, isolated and desperate?
Pitiful!
Unknown Unknowns says: January 26, 2012 at 8:56 pm
I care not wit about your abstractions.
The fact remains that in the Islamic republic of Iran – the Champion of the Oppressed Everywhere – women are coercedby the state to conform to somebody’s understanding of how Mulsim women should dress themselves.
And God-forbid that they decide to ride a bicycle – then Islam would be in danger.
You criticize the Univeralist claims of the Enlightenment and yet have nothing to say about the Universalist claims of Islam.
I believe individuals have intrinsic rights given to them by God.
neither you nor any Collective can legally and justly take those rights away from them.
You cannot hide behind phraes such as “cohesive, traditional society” because, in fact, no such thing obtains in Iran.
My advice to you is to be more honest with yourself and – if you really believe all this sociological mumbo-jumbo – to try to explain to Iranian women why their oppression is necessary and just to their faces.
Specially try to explain to a 12-year old girl why her riding a bicycle will detroy Iran and Islam.
Scott,
I must admit, i am one of the American system’s flunkies. The establishment of diplomacy sounds like a great idea to me, but I haven’t a clue about how to bring that radical idea of diplomacy into reality.
As a professor, what are your prescriptions for how to go about establishing full diplomatic relations between the two nations? Are the most recent sanctions spearheaded by America against the Iranian people hurtful or helpful towards the establishment of diplomacy between America and Iran?
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
1345 GMT: Sanctions Watch (Tehran Friday Prayer Edition). Delivering the Friday Prayer sermon today, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami declared that European Union’s tightened sanctions, adopted this week, will have no effect, “The EU embargo on the purchase of Iran’s oil is not a new matter. Such a hostile policy lacks a real impact on Iran’s economy.”
Khatami said the EU decision, suspending Iranian oil iports from 1 July, was an effort to influence Parliamentary elections on 2 March.
How keen is the regime to show that the European step is meaningless? Press TV — with 5 of its 7 top Iran stories on oil sanctions — brings out an expert to declare that the EU’s sanctions are “less than meets the eye”, as Tehran has “contingency plans”.
And who is this expert who concludes, “I’ll be surprised if [the sanctions have] that much impact.”
Why, it’s John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the UN who has called for a military strike on Iran.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
Eric,
“Am I missing something?”
Pretty much the entire story — the five Iranians who were put on camera are the five Iranian engineers who were abducted while working in Homs in December.
S.
PG,
Thank you for catching the typo, which came from the dangers of writing about Mohammad Reza Bahonar and Mohammad Khatami in the same entry.
S.
France: ‘Old Zionist hatred never dies’
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/france-old-zionist-hatred-never-dies/
Photi,
Yes, I would like to see an Iranian Embassy in the US — I have high regard for Iranian diplomats who pursued a resolution of US-Iran tensions in 2003.
S.
Scott,
I notice several posts from you this morning headed “The Latest from Iran,” which brought to mind the video of five Iranian soldiers “in Syria.”
I’ve now watched it twice, and still see nothing that indicates it was recorded in Syria. All I see are five guys sitting on a concrete floor with a white wall behind them. Am I missing something? I’m willing to accept that these five guys are Iranians, even that they’re Iranian soldiers whose identification cards are valid, even that they’re willing to sit on the floor in front of a video camera and “admit” to having killed innocent women and children “in Syria.”
But how do I know they’re not in somebody’s basement somewhere in Iran? There is no indication whatsoever that this video was recorded in Syria, or that any of these five guys has ever been anywhere near Syria.
Next time, just to undercut skeptics like me, you might consider suggesting that the video maker show something that suggests the video was actually filmed in Syria rather than in someone’s basement somewhere in Iran. Maybe a Syrian street scene in the background, for example. Possibly even a Syrian person.
Scott Lucas
I am very pleased that I have NEVER visited your website for an obvious reason that you don’t know what you are talking about.
“Former President Mohammad Reza Khatami — who has called for reformists…” =)) =)) =))
“Mohammad Reza” is the brother of “Mohammad” and a relatively radical reformist compared to the former president. Even as a doctor, he is an arrogant guy as far as I know from a personal experience that a very close relative had more than a decade ago.
http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B6%D8%A7_%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%85%DB%8C
Scott,
Would you like to see an Iranian embassy in Washington DC?
Photi,
I have personal opinions but EA WorldView’s “agenda”, first and foremost, is to bring out the news, especially from areas where there may be restrictions on information and which may be beyond the view of mainstream media.
Personally, since you ask the specific question, I am opposed to military conflict and would also like to see a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue, which I believe is used as a pawn on both sides to obscure other motives and issues.
S.
Scott,
The problem i have with you (and your website back when i was checking it out) is that you operate with an agenda and yet you are not clear about what that agenda is. This creates an air of deception about you. In a time when America’s narrative towards the Middle East is so pathetically full of lies used to justify endless violence, why should we believe yet one more deceiver? It is not that you have an agenda, it is that you are not forthcoming about it. Why is that?
I have an agenda, or rather i have motivations that lead me to act as all people do. Among my motivated actions is that i wish to advocate for the establishment of diplomacy between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran. That is why I frequent this site.* It is my belief that the establishment of GENUINE diplomacy between Iran and America will increase America’s security. Thus, in my view my agenda is a pro-American agenda (and pro-Iranian, and pro-humanity).
Scott, What is your agenda? What do you hope to accomplish in your efforts? In terms of the bigger picture, is the establishment of diplomacy between the USA and the IRI a good first step?
(*I nominate Professors Mann and Leverett to the first ambassadorship to Iran.)
Put in Unknown Boots — you mentioned PR firm Burston Marsteller. Believe it or not there was a day when the advertising industry was separate from education/news/entertainment, etc. It was a new industry and like every youngster, made mistakes. One of the more notable advertising gaffes involved a new jingle that was dreamed up for a bathroom tissue. Some committee of Harvard & Yale ad execs bought radio, TV, and billboard time to urge people to “Get in the groove with Scott tissue.” Perhaps you can find a boot or other confined space for EA’s own Scott?
hans at 6:25 am -
“it shows that Iran has a healthy “democracy” where there is debate about government policy. What gives in the USA?”
Phil and Adam at Mondoweiss have just announced its intention to go the way of DailyKos, a very large Democratic party blog. At that bastion of democratic freedom, truth, justice, equality, and the Amerikun way, Israel may only be mentioned if the keys are tapped with fingers wrapped in scented silk and velvet.
Following the DailyKos lead, Mondo will no longer permit comments that discuss holocaust “denial,” Nakba denial, or 9/11 conspiracy theory. Weiss and Horowitz explained that they are trying to make the site more “professional” and don’t want to get “distracted” by things like facts, truth, or things that might end up alienating Phil from the elites of his community who have finally displaced those nasty WASPs and are now fully in charge of “intellectual” and foreign policy discourse in the US.
The laddies doth protest too much methinks.
Scott Lucas says:
January 27, 2012 at 5:43 am & January 27, 2012 at 6:04 am
Scott it shows that Iran has a healthy “democracy” where there is debate about government policy. What gives in the USA?
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
1100 GMT: Economy Watch. Mehr reports that, as food prices rise, , rice is becoming scarce in Kermanshah in western Iran, with people hoarding it and other food items.
1055 GMT: The Battle Within. A commentary in Alef, linked to key MP Ahmad Tavakoli, has asked, “What else must happen before [President] Ahmadinejad is declared as incapable? Must the Islamic Republic be bulldozed before the Majlis impeaches him?”
1045 GMT: Elections All-Is-Well Alert. Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar has rejected any idea that March’s Parliamentary elections are not competitive as “nonsense”. He claimed that conservatives and principlists are facing more than 700 reformists, despite calls by many in the opposition for a boycott.
Former President Mohammad Reza Khatami — who has called for reformists not to stand in the elections but refrained from asking for a boycott of the ballot — has countered that “a system without votes has no weight” and that people have a right to question their representatives and officials.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
ban ki-moon proves again to be a puppet for bigger interest.
saying that the “onus is on Iran” is not only outright wrong (since Iran have no obligation or legal demand to show anything more under the current treaty) it also hurts the credibility of the UN leader that should be a impartial leader with no political power. Now he fails to live up to that, instead speaking nonsense that could have been written by the lobby.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUy9Ulb-PTU
also, how could this man get this job? because he easily could be moved in the ‘right’ direction and is weak? It must be.
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
1035 GMT: The Battle Within. Two candidates for Parliamentary elections in March have filed a complaint against Presidential advisor Ali Akbar Javanfekr for calling themm members of the “deviant current”.
Javanfekr is embroiled in political and legal battles within the establishment. He has been sentenced to two separate one-year prison sentences, one of them for “insulting the Supreme Leader” on his blog.
1005 GMT: Threat of the Day. An item on the Iranian Parlimentary website ICANA summarises the warnings of MPs that Iran could immediately cut oil supplies to Europe, responding to the European Union’s decision to suspend Iranian oil imports from 1 July.
Even more interesting, however, is this threat to China — the world’s largest importer of Tehran’s oil — from Nasser Soudani of Parliament’s Energy Committee: “If China enters the phase of sanctions…it will be [removed] from all of its projects in Iran. This will inflict heavy and considerable loss on China’s economy.”
0955 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Deputy Minister of Economy Mohammad Reza Farzin, has said that the launch of the second phase of subsidy cuts is now “unclear”.
Government ministers and officials, including President Ahmadinejad, have declared over the last six weeks that the second phase of the cuts was imminent.
Farzin asserted that, despite Parliamentary opposition, support payments to cover the higher prices of subsidy cuts will be cut off for about 10 million people.
Farzin denied that the recent currency turmoil had economic causes, putting forth the narrative that it was a “psychological” incident.
,http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
More from Vladimir Put-in-Boots:
“The reason is the U.S. foreign policy doctrine. They want to control everything…sometimes I have the impression that the United States does not need allies, that it needs vassals,” the prime minister said.
“They are not prepared to cooperate on real terms either with Europe or us. Cooperation on equal terms means determining threats together and working out a system of response to them together. They reject that flatly,” he said, referring to the missile defence system the U.S. is building in Europe.”
*
So, Captain America treats Europe and Russia as vassals, but it is the “stubbornness and incompetence” of “this stupid regime” that is bringing on all these sanctions and hardship. This, at least, is the moronic attitude we have to put up with here in northern Tehran, thanks to those twin evils BBC Persian and Voice of America. Never mind that Billary and Panetta and the NIE’s says there can be no possible justification for sanctions. I guess I’m repeating myself, repeating myself.
Lawd have mercy.
BREAKING NEWS: Putin accuses America of attempts to “Dominate the World”
Prime Minister Vladimir Put-in-Boots accused the United States of attempts to dominate the world and challenging internal political procedures in other countries as a tool for achieving that goal.
Etc.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28873
OK, so I admit it. I only pasted this story as I was dying to re-use my latest invention, Vladimir Put-in-Boots, which is too cute by half. (Its a Persian pun of sorts, so don’t worry if you don’t get it. [Putin = boot]. But you also have to be hip to Puss in Boots. OK, I guess if I have to explain it, its a stretch. But what do you expect from a clown?)
Someone (Castellio?) had mentioned a few weeks back that they were reading Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt in a reading group. Whoever that was might be interested in this, her latest article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28878
Did your reading group reach any conclusion other than ‘Oh Em Gee, We’re SO Fucked’?
Apparently it’s true.
Amano tells German MPs no proof for Iranian nukes
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/12098
Scott, don’t even try to pretend you weren’t pushing the Iranian troops in Syria angle…
You were an idiot to jump on that story, but you’re too cowardly to admit it.
Your propaganda is about as lame as that video…
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
0835 GMT: Clerical Intervention. Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, the head of the Assembly of Experts, has said in a lecture, “Clergy should be independent and should not be a political plaything.”
Mahdavi Kani is embroiled in a political battle, ahead of March’s Parliamentary elections, with other clerics. He heads the “7+8″ Committee which has sought conservative and principlist unity, but which has been challenged by the Islamic Constancy Front, whose senior figures include Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.
0810 GMT: The Battle Within. The pro-Ahmadinejad Raha Press continues its attack on the President’s critics with a poem for Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of Kayhan.
Raha asks, “What kind of old, lame, tired [newspaper] is this Kayhan?” And, turning Shariatmadari’s claims of a “deviant current” back on the editor, it asks, “Who is deviant now?”
Raha concludes, “I tell you: prepare yourself for your fall now.”
,http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
OH, and I forgot to mention that we need another presstitute (or the same one, I’m easy) to say that uranium as a material for bomb-building went out 60 years ago with the advent of Plutonium bomb technology. No-one here at RFI picked up on that important cross post I pasted from Moon of Alabama, but it seems to me that it is a key piece of information. In other words, if the Islamic Republic were to hire Burson-Marsteller or some other heavy-hitter PR firm, that’s probably one of the first things they would do: Uranium? That’s soooo 1940’s. Hel-looooooooooo? Its Plu-TOE-niummmmmmmm…)
Scotty Boy:
It’s one thing for you to come here and post hasbara comments which no one takes seriously, trying to disrupt the normal flow of comments. Now you’ve started posting your actual posts, followed by the link. That smacks of desperation, Scotty Boy. Have some sense of pride. WTF!?
What are you gonna say now that your paymasters have played their last card, and it landed with a whimper rather then a bang? Now Uncle Weasel will have to go the next step, which, as Richard predicts, is a blockade. 99% of the real world already knows that Team Weasel has declared war on Iran. Once they enact a blockade, even that 1% who are asleep in northern Tehran will wake up and smell the napalm in the morning. What’s truly bizarre true to the Kurtzian scenario is that first the two NIW reports came out with it, then that mass-murdering witch Billary said it, then Leon Panetta said it, and hell, even Olmert said it (or some other ?ew, not sure). So that you know now that a ?ew has said it, Barry “White” O’Bumma can’t be far behind. So here we have Team Schizo saying chorus-fashion that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a weapons program, but at the same time, we’re gonna sanction the shit out of them and then (probably) blockade them. And there is not a single presstitute out there with the balls (brains?) to say WTF???
Note to God: OK, we get it. You DO have a sense of humor. Sorry I said you didn’t. Now enough already with the bullshit. Sheeeeeeesh.
RSH,
If you read, rather than leaping to conclusions, you might note that — as we brought out the video and gathered information (which no one else, apart from a German publication, has done so far) — we never claimed that the 5 men were confirmed to be “Iranian soldiers”. (Note the quote marks, which are important here.)
You might also note that we have brought out an equally important possibility, as a reader has commented:
“So if the ’soldiers’ and the ‘engineers’ are the same men, they’re…really engineers who have been held hostage since December and are now being put to use in FSA propaganda and are showing their military ID cards from back when they did their service in Iran….”
Best,
S.
Scotty Boy backs down from his “Iranians in Syria” story…
After realizing what an IDIOT it makes him…
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
0727 GMT: The “Iranian Soldiers” in Syria. An EA correspondent makes a vital connection, linking the Thursday video of five “Iranian soldiers” captured in Syria with the case of five Iranian “engineers” reportedly kidnapped in Syria in December.
First, the names from the video which we posted last night: Sajjad (Haider Ali) Aminan, Ahmad Gertabadi. Hasan Hasani. Majid Qanbari. Kyumars Qobadi.
Now this from the Iranian website Mehr on 29 December:
The five [abducted] engineers, who have been building the [Syrian city of Hom's] Jandar power plant for the past two years are: electrical engineer and caretaker of electrical equipment testing group Sajad Amirian; technician and the workshop caretaker Ahmad Sohrabi; technician and electrical equipments installer Hassan Hassani; technician and installer of testing equipments of electrical equipment Majid Ghanbari; and technician and electrical equipment installer Qumars Ghobadi.
These specialists are employed in Parsian and Fanavaran-Sanat-Gostar-e-Zagros Corporations.
0720 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The Iranian Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, has raised concern over the detention of a SOAS alumnae, Parastoo Dokouhaki, and expressed solidarity in calling for her release.
Dokouhaki, a prominent blogger and former journalist, was arrested on 15 January after a raid on her home.
The Society has written:
“Parastoo had not been involved in any form of activism for some time and neither had she been involved in journalism of late. Rather, she has reportedly been working on translations and research over the past 2 years. Her sudden arrest and detention has therefore come as a shock to her family, friends and former teachers and colleagues here at SOAS. Parastoo Dokouhaki had reportedly lost her father a few months ago and has a chronic illness for which she must use medication under the supervision of her physician.”
,http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
Nothing particularly useful here except the usual: Dempsey is either lying (remember, when a US general speaks, he’s lying) or clueless…
Dempsey: US, Israel view Iran threat very differently
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4181550,00.html
Julian Borger on The Iranian oil embargo: does this mean war?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/23/iran-oil-embargo-mean-war
A nice recap of the overall military situation. Nothing really new.
The Latest from Iran: 27 January
0710 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Banking and trade sources have said that major banks in the European Union have halted finance of grain shipments for Iran.
“It is now a fact that no EU banks will do trade financing for Iran destination cargoes of grains, oilseeds or whatever,” one European grain trader said. “The bottom line is it is very difficult to work trading to Iranian destinations through banking systems. Some Iranian buyers are seeking to use other payment methods avoiding letters of credit, basically direct payment, but this is unworkable for large-size shipments.”
A European banking source said any new deals for agricultural products would have to be backed by smaller entities.
Iran imports around 4.5 million tonnes of grain a year, including about 3.5 million tonnes of corn, the leading world grain for animal feed. It ranks among the top 10 global importers of maize, but it has key suppliers outside Europe, including Brazil, Argentina, and Ukraine.
A European trader claimed, “As far as I know there are six panamax and three handy-size bulk carriers waiting in the anchorages off Iranian ports and unable to unload because of payment problems.” That is a potential supply of about 420,000 tonnes held up in the ships.
Another trader said, “The Iran trade is in chaos with devaluations, and payment difficulties are causing ships to be delayed. It is hard to guess the numbers, but delays of up to 60 days are being talked about.”
0600 GMT: Currency Watch. Gold prices, after their sharp fall on Wednesday amidst the rise in interest rates to 21%, fell again slightly on Thursday, with old gold coin now at 800,000 Toman (about $470).
With foreign exchange offices and banks closed for the Iran weekend, the Iranian Rial stands at Thursday’s claimed open-market rate of 17000:1 vs. the US dollar — an increase of more than 25% in the value of the Iranian currency from its low point on Tuesday.
,http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
Another example of same…
U.A.E. Can Export Oil If Iran Closes Strait, Official Says
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-26/u-a-e-can-export-oil-if-iran-closes-strait-official-says.html
The Latest from Iran — 27 January:
0550 GMT: We open the morning not in Iran but in Syria, where two stories — possibly related, possibly not — broke on Thursday night.
First, Iranian officials claimed that eleven men had been abducted from a bus, while on pilgrimage, on the road from Damascus to Aleppo. The officials said that the women on the bus were left behind, as the men were taken to an unknown location. The gunmen allegedly contacted the relatives of one man, demanding a ransom.
Later in the evening, without offering any further details, Foreign Ministry spokesmen Ramin Mehmanparast said, “These acts, which are against humane principles and moral and international obligations, are by no means justifiable, and it is expected that these people take immediate action to free Iranian pilgrims….We…request the Syrian government authorities to employ all means available to ensure the safety of these Iranian nationals and their quick freedom.”
The claimed kidnapping follows the claimed abduction on 21 December on their way to a power plant in Homs. Two more Iranian men were reportedly seized when they went to Syria to resolve the situation of the five engineers.
Hours later, a video emerged which claimed to show five Iranian soldiers captured by the Free Syrian Army amidst intense fighting in Homs. The men “confessed”: “We supported the security intelligence forces of Syria in suppressing and shooting civilians….We have killed many civilians in the city of Homs, including many women and children. We received our orders directly from the airforce intelligence forces of the city of Homs.”
Further checking on the video, translated by EA’s Josh Shahryar, yields more questions. The accents of the men indicate that they are not from Tehran; however, there is debate as to whether they are from the provincial area of Iran or from Afghanistan. The men show cards indicating that they have been in Iranian military service, but it is still unclear with which section and unit.
,http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/27/the-latest-from-iran-27-january-pilgrims-and-soldiers.html
Oil Markets Seen Withstanding Iran Attack Shock in Investor Poll
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-27/oil-markets-seen-withstanding-iran-attack-shock-in-investor-poll.html
Quote
More than 70 percent of investors said an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would create only a short-term disruption in oil markets, according to a quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll.
End Quote
Like these idiots have any clue as to the military ramifications as I’ve outlined in earlier posts.
This is clearly propaganda intended to make it seem an Iran war is “no big deal.”
A-a-n-n-d-d h-h-e-e-r-r-e-e we GO!
What did I say about a blockade being the next step?
‘Massive’ Blockade Needed to Stop Iran Threat, Steinitz Says
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-26/-massive-blockade-needed-to-stop-iran-threat-steinitz-says.html
Quote
A “massive” aerial and naval blockade of Iran, reminiscent of the 1962 U.S. quarantine of Cuba, is needed to stop the Islamic regime from pursuing nuclear weapons, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said.
The European Union’s ban on imports of Iranian crude and other economic sanctions “might not be sufficient” to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Steinitz, 53, said today in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York.
The gravity of a potential nuclear-armed Iran is such that stronger action is needed, he said. A “massive blockade,” so that “no one can even go out,” stands some chance of success, he said.
End Quote
Count on the US MSM picking this up and running with it.
The latest from Kaveh Afrasiabe on US-Iran: A long game with pitfalls
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA27Ak02.html
Commenting on Cordesman’s recent report from CSIS, he says:
Quote
Counseling an American strategy of “extended deterrence”, consisting of sanctions, arms-control efforts and “continued deployment of military capabilities”, the report discounts its own insights on Iran’s probability of success in a “long game” and thus recycles the familiar American security discourse on Iran without adding any element of novelty to revise it.”
The report neither questions the large heap of disinformation on Iran’s currently peaceful nuclear program designed to hype the “Iran threat”, nor does it explore the egregious flaws of the latest report on Iran by the (blatantly pro-American) Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); nor does it mention the US and other Western countries manufacturing pretexts for escalating pressures on Iran.
Concerning the latter, the report repeatedly blames Iran for “spurring” this escalation by its “ongoing missile deployments and nuclear program”, its recent alleged role in an assassination plot in Washington DC against a Saudi Arabian diplomat, and the “government-sponsored mob attack on the British Embassy” in Tehran last November.
The authors have turned a blind eye to the US’s own mischief, such as concocting a fictitious terror plot to incriminate Iran and up the ante against it. Instead of attempting to debunk the US accusation, which has been questioned by a sizable pool of Iran experts in the West, the authors adopt the terror plot as fact, just as they dispense with any critical analysis of the deafening Iran-phobic alarms on a coming “nuclear Iran”.
Suffice to say that even the compliant Amano in his recent trip to Germany confided to German lawmakers that there “is no evidence” that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
End Quote
I hadn’t heard that last myself, interesting if true.
Quote
The fact is that the Iran nuclear crisis has been good business for both the US and the Western military-industrial complex, in light of the exorbitant arms sales to Arab oil states in the Persian Gulf, who are also signing lucrative contracts for nuclear reactors.
According to reports in the US media, the US has now dropped its demand that countries such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates agree not to enrich uranium as part of their growing nuclear relations with the US. Simultaneously, the US and Europe continue to insist that Iran should divest itself of this right, thus giving a new edge to double standards.
End Quote
Got that right!
Barbara Slavin on Sanctions aimed at averting wider conflict
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA27Ak01.html
I view this notion – that the sanctions are just an attempt to dissuade Israel from attacking Iran right now – as just stupid.
First of all, there is ZERO evidence the Israelis believe sanctions will dissuade Iran from continuing its nuclear energy program, even if liberals and assorted other idiots might believe it.
Second, there is ZERO evidence that the Israelis even care about Iran’s nuclear program at the highest levels of the Israeli government. First of all, Israel’s military and intelligence experts have explicitly stated, just as US intelligence agencies have, that there is ZERO evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Second, they have said that they know Iran is not an “existential threat” to Israel even if if Iran had nuclear weapons.
So clearly the Israeli leadership’s motivations – like the US motivations – for demonizing and demanding a military attack on Iran lie elsewhere.
So why should they be dissuaded by sanctions from continuing to press for military action on Iran?
Third, as Silverstein says in the earlier piece, after thirty years of sanctions, anyone who thinks the latest are just to dissuade the Israelis is being truly naive. The enmity between the US and Iran is unconditional and fundamental: Iran is not a vassal state of the US and until it is, the US will pursue regime change by any means necessary.
Fourth, the US pursued sanctions against Iraq for years as a means of weakening the country to make it ripe for attack once the circumstances were feasible. The same situation exists with regard to Iran. It just took longer due to the geopolitical factors that mitigated against an attack earlier. Again, the latest sanctions are just the normal progression of steps toward initiating a war.
Slavin is basically useless as a writer about Iran. She buys into all the BS and never questions it ever.
Quote
There is particular concern that Israel might act in 2012 out of concern that Iran is nearing nuclear weapons capability and in the belief that the Barack Obama administration would be obliged to support Israel in a US presidential election year.
End Quote
The first part of that is BS. The second part is a correct assessment of Obama’s situation. He CANNOT refuse to support Israel if Israel attacks Iran, especially in an election year.
The problem for Israel is that the situation vis-a-vis Hizballah in Lebanon has not been resolved. Israel failed to resolve it in 2006 and has been unable to find a way to deal with it in any way that doesn’t involve starting a war with Syria as well.
That is why 2012 is the first real chance Israel has had since 2006 to start the Iran war. Because Syria is under attack and the situation there is likely to disintegrate very rapidly over the coming months.
The only question for Israel is will the situation deteriorate fast enough to weaken Syria militarily enough to enable Israel to attack Hizballah? And then will that campaign be successful enough to allow Israel to attack Iran during the election year?
I see this as a real problem for Israel. Israel has only until early November – and preferably earlier- nine more months from February 1st – to attack Iran if it wants to count on Obama’s election having any influence. This means Syria has to be under attack by the US/NATO within the next several months at best, certainly October.
And the earlier the better to insure that Syria is sufficiently weakened that Israel can launch the Lebanon attack. And then still earlier to insure that Israel has any chance at all of crushing Hizballah prior to the election.
Very iffy timing, in my view.
Richard Silverstein on An alternative to war
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA27Ak04.html
Quote
After following Iranian-Western relations for years, I believe the diplomatic track is a mirage and that the sanctions regime, which the West has pursued without success for 30 years, will not gain Iran’s capitulation. That leaves only two options: war, or Western impotence in the face of Iran’s implacable determination to pursue a nuclear option. Either option is bad, but the first is far worse than the second.
End Quote
He’s right in the sense that either there is war or the US “blinks”.
His suggested solution – containment – is a non-starter. It won’t satisfy Israel nor the neocons nor the military-industrial complex nor the oil coapanies nor the banks who finance them.
I just watched the Youtube video of the five alleged IRGC members.
This is a frickin’ joke!
First of all, contrary to Sassan’s BS, there are no “insignia” or anything of the sort visible in the video. The five men are dressed in black – no uniforms. If they were official Basiji assigned to Syrian forces, they would be identifiable by uniforms so the Syrians wouldn’t shoot them by accident in the areas of conflict. At the very least, if the propagandists had any brains, they would have procured fake uniforms for these guys. As it stands, they look like any Middle Eastern thug dressed in black…The beards aren’t even impressive..
Second, only one of the men speaks, and someone commenting on the Youtube video says he speaks with a heavy Arab accent.
Third, they spend the last three or four minutes of the six minute video flipping passport pages slowly one by one just to show a couple passport stamps, as well as showing the alleged identities of the men. That’s a real joke. These passports could have been ground out by any passport mill in the world for the grand sum of maybe a couple hundred dollars.
Fourth, one of the posters on Youtube says:
“This is not an identification card. This card, which any male Iranian has, is simply a certificate of finishing military service, mandatory for all men. You don’t need to be in the military to have one of them.”
Fifth, as one guy on Youtube comments, “they are wearing black and have an airsoft rifle, they clearly mean business.” :-)
Sixth, someone else comments: “Anyone know when this movies out? Seems Great ;)”
Seventh, someone else comments: “i didnt realise the guys from my local takeaway had started a pop group and were posting vids on youtube?! keep it up guys,love the infidel xxx”
Eight, someone else comments: “filmed in wolverhampton by a bunch of kebab shop staff”
The other 41 pages of comments are in Persian or Arabic, so someone else will have to read them to see if anything useful can be discerned, aside from insults back and forth…
The grand sum of this video is some unknown silent men are sitting in a room somewhere on the planet, with one reciting some verbiage, and the rest are passport pages being shown.
This is not only a complete crock, it’s THE POOREST excuse for a propaganda video ever produced! Someone with very little idea of how to produce propaganda directed this one. I can’t believe the CIA, British or French intelligence, let alone Mossad, were involved in this because it’s so pathetically bad. I could have done better with a flip-phone and some local Persians…
Only a numb-nuts like Sassan and Scotty Boy could buy this nonsense…
Short but worth the read.
To Confront Iran, Will the U.S. Risk Relations with India?
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/01/26/to-confront-iran-will-the-u-s-risk-relations-with-india/?iid=gs-article-mostpop1
Wilbur says, “History clearly shows whenever an Islamist regime had power they did use force to spread their world view often citing scripture to support it (see the Ottaman Empire whom was literally at war it’s entire existence. ). Khomeini clearly supported this train of thought best demonstrated by one his more famous quotes. “establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong to the great goals of the revolution.”. This line of thought is not radical nor extremist it is a core goal of Islam itself.”
1. Although you seem to be the most congenial of the bunch who holds a view contrary to the norm on this site, I still do not believe there is any possibility of holding a fruitful discussion with you, because you are entrenched in your views (as I am in mine), and our views are too far apart for their to be sufficient common ground for any productive discussion. Therefore, because I see the RFI forum as an oasis of sanity and refuge for those of us who do not hold mainstream views on Islam and Iran (as you do), I recommend highly to other contributors to refrain from engaging even you in conversation. This is for the sake of preserving as much as possible the oasis-like quality, which has dissipated over the last few days thanks to the presence of Agents Sassan and Scotty Boy, as well as – to a lesser extent – yourself.
2. The Ottoman Empire was not “Islamist”. That word did not come into being until after the Revolution of 1979 (unless I am quite mistaken).
3. I don’t know if you are misquoting Imam Khomeini or not, but it does not matter. The dynamic of every religion, every system of ethics, including Christianity, of course, is that it believes itself to be the right (or Right, to use Richard’s capitalization) way. As such, it would be logical for that system to want to spread itself universally, and it would be illogical for it not to want to do so. That is not the issue (as you erroneously believe). The issue is HOW that system is to spread: by force, by economic imperative, by example, etc. You can quote the Koran out of context all you like (Just like that fool Ibn Waraq or whatever his name is – the ex-Moslem Islamophobe, who is defended by your coreligionist fyi), but that will not change the history of your religion or mine. Both of them are guilty of atrocities, of course, but there is a consensus growing even in Western scholarship that Islam was – generally speaking – NOT spread by the sword. Which is something that can not be said of your religion, to say the least. To recap: to want to spread your faith and system of values is no sin of itself. In fact, why do you even hold to a belief system if you do not feel it worthy of emulation by everyone else? Only Jews and Armenians and people similarly stuck in tribal worldviews think that way.
4. I think its quite rich for you to point the finger of blame and concern about forcing one’s views on others sitting in a country who has attacked literally countless countries in the past century, including dropping not one but two nuclear devices on civilian population centers, whereas “Islamist” Iran has only been the victim of said attacks and atrocities. Again, the irony will be lost on your entrenched mind, which is no longer prehensile, as far as I am concerned, when it comes to issues Islamic and Iranic.
5. You conclude your tepid post thus: “The pain was so bad after my third surgery i went into shock then cardiac arrest. Not fun but something that gives you a new profound outlook on life.” In my humbling opinion, it would be best if you let others be the judge of your outlook and its “profundity” or lack thereof.
In closing, even though this post is addressed to you, it really is not. It is merely a rhetorical devide. My audience are people other than yourself. This, however, IS addressed to you, as a fellow traveler on the monotheist path (which is as far as I am willing to go on the ill-advised branch of ecumenicism): While there are always exceptions to such rules given the fact that Islam is a vast civilization, the vast majority of Moslems do not believe in forcing their religion on others. As a matter of fact, doing so is contrary to the dictates of our religion, and is forbidden. Not that reading this is going to make any difference to your views. Like I said: you are entrenched. Have a nice life.
On a Tour Cut Short, Monitors in Syria See Little
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/world/middleeast/in-syria-arab-league-monitors-face-severe-limits.html?_r=1
The article makes great efforts to basically belittle the Arab League observers, but ends up conveying more evidence that the Syrian dissidents are mostly an armed gang which is as much a threat to civilians as the security forces.
In any event, the whole observers issue is basically irrelevant. The West is directly supporting the Free Syrian Army and the West MSM is taking most of its information from that group. Assad’s claim that this is mostly a foreign instigated uprising is undoubtedly correct, no matter how many of the Syrian population don’t like the government for rational reasons (and the figures from polls and other estimates is that anywhere from 30-55% do support the government, if for no other reason than they’re afraid of what might replace it, given the messes in Iraq and Libya and the ongoing uncertainty about Egypt.)
In other words, while Assad and his crowd may be scum, it’s irrelevant to the conflict the geopolitical goals of which are to weaken Syria militarily to allow Israel to take out Hizballah in Lebanon preparatory to a war with Iran.
And since the Syrian dissidents don’t seem to grasp that situation, even though most of the local opposition groups have explicitly said they don’t want foreign intervention, they’re not helping their country.
The Syrian groups need to find a way to sideline the Free Syrian Army and take back their uprising from the West. But I view that as unlikely given the situation. The West can always continue doing terrorism in Syria to sideline the legitimate dissidents just as Al Qaeda did so in Iraq. As long as the Free Syrian Army is operating out of Turkey with US, British and French and Turkish support, there’s little the local opposition can do to derail them. And the more they operate, the worse the government crack down will be. It’s a Catch-22 situation.
Correction: “Not if Iran” s/b “Now if Iran”…
Wilbur says: “Good grief what is it with the name calling? Scum?”
You support the West’s attempts to overthrow the regime in Iran. Given the likely consequences of that for the region, that makes you scum.
“I was dead set against the 2nd war in Iraq.”
That is to your credit.
“Now having said that I don’t think it is hypocritical to call out gross human rights abuses whomever may commit them even when the country you reside in has committed them.”
And I’ve explained my position on that in detail.
“I would also point out the actions of states respective to each other need to be balanced out and good way to do this would be to juxtapose the acting parties.”
Say what?
“Just imagine if Iran had the economic and military power the US does. Do you honestly think they wouldn’t try to be forcing their religiously motivated world view on the rest.”
I wouldn’t be surprised. In my view, as I’ve said, most humans are scum. So what?
“History clearly shows whenever an Islamist regime had power they did use force to spread their world view”
Except for Iran’s current regime which has done nothing in MILITARY terms to do that. Again, so what?
“Khomeini clearly supported this train of thought best demonstrated by one his more famous quotes. “establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong to the great goals of the revolution.”. This line of thought is not radical nor extremist it is a core goal of Islam itself. Thankfully despite the Quranic mandate that believers must “fight until all religion is for Allah” we don’t see this type of force and we don’t simply because they lack the means not the motivation to do so”
Again, so what? As I’ve said, I have no truck with either the Muslim religion or the Iranian state. I’m a US citizen. My problem is my government, not Iran’s. If you’re an Iranian living in Iran or wishing to return to Iran, then that’s your problem, not mine.
“So yes I support the west over theocracy’s like Iran’s despite all the blood shed.”
So you admit to supporting the West’s attempts to demonize Iran for the West’s own geopolitical and economic gain? If not, why are you on this site, which is primarily concerned with avoiding a war with Iran, stridently condemning the Iranian state?
“1). Could you the avowed anarchist openly ridicule and critique the regime in Iran from within?”
I don’t live there, so it’s not a problem. It’s the problem of anarchists in Iran – and if I remember correctly, there are some or have been. Can’t remember where I heard that.
“2). Could you as an atheist openly critique and even denounce Islam within Iran?”
Ditto.
“3). Could you ridicule the leader telling everyone he is a scum?”
Ditto.
“4). If you were religious would you be able to freely call others to your faith in Iran?”
“5). For shits and giggles let’s assume you all of sudden decided to love Israel. Could you openly display that love in Iran?”
All pointless questions which entirely miss my point.
But furthermore all of those questions would ALSO apply and HAVE always applied to almost every explicitly Christian dominant state in history. And currently in Israel, they are drifting toward the same sort of censorship and oppression of anyone opposing Zionist ideology.
“Simply put the very culture you rail against is the very one that gives you the platform to espouse your worldview.”
And the US is expending efforts every day to reverse and remove that platform.
“Are you starting to grasp the irony of your position and why people like me still choose to side with the west despite everything? I hope this adequately explains my position.”
It does. It’s muddled and confused and based on fear of a country and a culture and a religion that has ZERO chance of ever achieving any such control of the world. Which once again remands it to be the problem of those people who reside in those countries.
“Not fun but something that gives you a new profound outlook on life.”
Sorry to hear about your medical conditions. I fortunately have managed to avoid severe medical problems for my entire life except for one really bad chest flu a couple years ago that had me vomiting up mucus for about six weeks. Had that become chronic, I would have been really messed up and unable to function.
My suggestion is that you stop worrying about Muslim theocracy taking over the world and consider that this site is about dealing with defusing a crisis which will lead to hundreds of thousands if not millions of dead Iranians if it cannot be defused. And I am convinced it cannot be so defused.
Not if Iran did as you suggest and achieved regime change so that it was a compliant US vassal, then perhaps that situation could be avoided. But I suggest to you that despite your concern over the current regime, the end result would merely be a different sort of oppression and impoverisation of the Iranian people.
Iran is what it is. It’s not worth complaining about from the point of view of people not living there, any more than Afghanistan or Iraq or Tonga. What is worth complaining about is the rush to start a war over it.
So complaining that this site is somehow “justifying” the Iranian regime is not relevant and incorrect. That’s not the point of this site. If there are some Iranians here who support the regime (and I don’t think there are many, as far as I can tell), there are more who support Iran as a people and culture and who don’t want to see the West destroy what they value culturally and religiously – as is their right.
I personally would prefer to see little argument here over the nature and culture of Iran or its state, and more about the situation as it exists vis-a-vis the West.
If you think the West is coming down on Iran because it’s an “evil theocracy”, you are being really naive.
U.N. Security Council to hold closed talks on Syria situation
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/26/world/meast/syria-unrest/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_world
“Closed talks” – talk about conspiracy theory.
Also this on the alleged captured Iranians…
Quote
Also on Thursday, amateur video surfaced online showing five men who said they were Iranian men who’d been kidnapped in Syria last month. On the video, all five men state their names and show their passports.
One man says they all belong to the Basij, the volunteer paramilitary group allied with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and were sent to Syria to fight terrorists and “tyrants” who were challenging Syrian government forces. No identification from the men, that was shown, indicate they are part of the Basij.
“I plead to you, Mr. Khamenei and the Islamic Republic of Iran, that the group and I want to return home to Iran,” one man said. “We want to be reunited with our families.”
End Quote
No ID. The fact that this was even mentioned indicates no one is taking this seriously, even the MSM.
They claim to be Basiji which strikes me as unlikely. And they’re pleading to return home. Not really motivated Basiji, are they? More likely Iranian Kurds recruited to pretend to be Basiji.
Wilbur,
“In conclusion she said it’s a 50/50 call, but she said the fact they are Iranians begs the question what they were doing in Syria.”
I don’t speak or write the Persian, which may have been an advantage to me in making the following comment: I saw nothing in that video to indicate those men were in Syria. It may be I missed something or didn’t appreciate the significance of something I saw. But I’d appreciate your asking your girlfriend what makes her think this was filmed in Syria (if she does).
Sassan,
Thanks for pointing that out. However I will not trust this video until more conclusive evidence is brought forth. It is just way to convenient not to mention the whole air of staging it stinks of. By the way I was the guy who exchanged with you on CNN. I am a greenie whom some here don’t like but at least seem to tolerate– well most of the time! :) lol.
Take care
Bill
Pirouz,
Well aware the salfists who make up the core of Syrian Free Army have bushy beards. However my girlfriend was pretty sure these were Iranians when they spoke. Doesn’t conclusively prove anything other than they are well Iranians. Now having said that I will not trust this video without more credible evidence. Until then I will view items like this as just another in a long line of tapped propaganda confessions which seem all to common place in the ME with even Iran doing it as well.
By the way for what it’s worth the Syrian Free Army scares the daylights out of me. My greatest worry is if they come to power the religious minorities akin to what happened in Iraq will face genocide like conditions. Ironic wouldn’t you say that the dictators in the region have done the best job taking care of their religious minorities?
Thx
Bill
Richard Steven Hack,
On the video I do have to agree with the majority of your assessment. It’s just to convenient for something like this to happen. For the matter I wouldn’t put it past the opposition to take a play out of the ruling regimes play book and orchestrate something like this. Sadly we are all left trying to figure out who is telling the truth like a bunch of sheep.
Thx
Bill
Richard Steven Hack,
Good grief what is it with the name calling? Scum?
Childish antics aside has it dawned on you that just maybe I am one of those people who don’t think my country is blameless? I was dead set against the 2nd war in Iraq. It was a tragically evil event that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and all based on a lie. I to believe it should be left up to the people and it is why I think the US foreign policy of trying to export Western liberal democracy is and always will be a huge mistake. If the people in the middle east want it then it should be up to them to usher it in. Now having said that I don’t think it is hypocritical to call out gross human rights abuses whomever may commit them even when the country you reside in has committed them. I would also point out the actions of states respective to each other need to be balanced out and good way to do this would be to juxtapose the acting parties.
Just imagine if Iran had the economic and military power the US does. Do you honestly think they wouldn’t try to be forcing their religiously motivated world view on the rest. History clearly shows whenever an Islamist regime had power they did use force to spread their world view often citing scripture to support it (see the Ottaman Empire whom was literally at war it’s entire existence. ). Khomeini clearly supported this train of thought best demonstrated by one his more famous quotes. “establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong to the great goals of the revolution.”. This line of thought is not radical nor extremist it is a core goal of Islam itself. Thankfully despite the Quranic mandate that believers must “fight until all religion is for Allah” we don’t see this type of force and we don’t simply because they lack the means not the motivation to do so So yes I support the west over theocracy’s like Iran’s despite all the blood shed. I do because I now if given the chance theocratic dictatorships will make the evils of the west look like kittens play. It doesn’t make it fair just a reality that the US is the lesser of the two evils. Now if you disagree that is your right but I would ask you to take into account:
1). Could you the avowed anarchist openly ridicule and critique the regime in Iran from within?
2). Could you as an atheist openly critique and even denounce Islam within Iran?
3). Could you ridicule the leader telling everyone he is a scum?
4). If you were religious would you be able to freely call others to your faith in Iran?
5). For shits and giggles let’s assume you all of sudden decided to love Israel. Could you openly display that love in Iran?
You can do none of the above in Iran let alone any state governed by Sharia. Instead you get a rigidly enforced monoculture in which even your right to life is subject to being taken for not conforming! Simply put the very culture you rail against is the very one that gives you the platform to espouse your worldview. Are you starting to grasp the irony of your position and why people like me still choose to side with the west despite everything? I hope this adequately explains my position.
As for the torture I am truly sorry you had to endure that. As for surviving it I cannot offer a true opinion without having gone through it. However I have had my own issues that would make most shrivel up at the thought. I am allergic to most known painkillers except for things such and aspirin or ibuprofen. Not problematic that is until you have to have major surgery. I have had major abdominal surgery 8 times and had to deal with unimaginable pain. The pain was so bad after my third surgery i went into shock then cardiac arrest. Not fun but something that gives you a new profound outlook on life.
Thx
Bill
Wilbur: This is a setup without doubt. IRGC forces in Syria would be unlikely to be on the front lines “murdering women and children”, yada, yada. They would be training the Syrians, “advisers” as the US likes to call them.
There is no reason Iran forces SHOULDN’T be in Syria any more than US forces are in Pakistan or anywhere else. Iran has a defense treaty with Syria and a stake in maintaining the Syrian regime from a geopolitical viewpoint.
Given that it is a known fact that Libyan mercenaries comprise a large part of the Free Syrian Army, it’s hardly a crime for IRGC personnel to be in Syria.
What is unlikely is that THESE guys are IRGC. Far more likely is that they are MEK posing as IRGC. It would not be hard for uniforms, badges and IDs to be faked. Israeli Mossad agents allegedly were posing as CIA in contact with Jundallah with CIA credentials, American accents, and American money.
There’s very little doubt that this is a “false flag” operation, probably organized by either the CIA, MI6, French intelligence or Mossad – probably the former since it’s unlikely Syrian dissidents would work with Mossad – if they even KNEW they were Mossad, a la Jundallah. But with known CIA and British and French intelligence on the ground in Turkey, it’s very likely it’s their work. The fact that it was the Free Syrian Army and not the other Syrian dissidents who allegedly caught these guys makes that very probable.
Wilbur says:
January 26, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Have you seen videos of purported Free Syrian Army soldiers (SyA defectors)? Some of them have really bushy beards, How could recent Syrian Army soldiers grow such bushy beards so fast, you might ask. You can draw your own conclusions.
Making fake IDs is easy.
Usually ethnic minorities enter the Basij, not the cadre of the IRGC.
We heard similar things following the 2009 presidential election in Iran: that Hamas and Hezbollah were out on the streets of Tehran attacking protesters. These claims were ridiculous. (There’s evidence this rumor originated from Israeli intelligence sources).
It isn’t easy to field Iranian military/security units in an Arab environment, and vice-versa. There’s the language barrier, unfamiliarity with the surroundings, differences in respective training, equipment, etc. That said, it was done in Lebanon in the early/mid 80s. But the Iranians found they were of most use as trainers and advisors. For their part, the Syrians have a lot more experience right now at the application of military force they’ve been exerting continuously for months now, whereas the Iranians recent experiences are applied in law enforcement techniques primarily performed by NAJA and not the IRGC.
One can never know for sure, but I’m highly skeptical of the video’s authenticity. If by some chance these persons are IRGC, I would think them to be observers. It would make sense for the Iranians to study both the Syrian military’s experiences in this form of warfare, as well as the tactics of the Free Syrian Army (and armed groups) which is being assisted by Western military Special Forces advisors.
Re my January 26, 2012 at 11:11 pm post about religious fanatics…
This is the ORIGINAL “blowback”…
Without the rise of these stupid monotheistic religions, we’d all still be pagans at this point…or maybe scientists once occultism got mixed in with Greek rationalism which led to alchemy and then science. Hell, we’d probably all be Transhumanists…since the basic characteristic of Transhumanism is the desire to “be God, not worship God” and that culturally derives from the pagan Gnostics. If the Gnostic religions hadn’t been exterminated by these pathetic imperialist genocidal monotheistic religions – especially Christianity which made a crusade of it – we’d all have been better off.
Or look at it this way… Everything you are is because of what some ancestor did…an ancestor who survived…and all your problems are because your ancestors were buttheads…
And your descendants are going to say the same about you…
Fiorangela: “From Adelson’s lips to Bibi’s ear to New Yorker slicks to NYT’s front page”
Another example of the “ruling elite” in the US.
I’m happy. Once I get my computer hacking up and running, I’m gonna suck money out of this guy like Yellowstone geyser…
All these guys are just targets to me. They’re going to finance their own destruction.
Sakineh Bagoom: “I am almost sure that you were previously of the view that those whom don’t prepare themselves (the victim) are to be blamed for their un-preparedness.”
Fyi can speak for himself, but in my view, while one can blame the victim of aggression for not being able to resist it – a view I hold myself – it does not excuse the aggressor of his action.
The problem with Canning is that he blames the victim and then finds excuses for the aggressor. This is very common.
Take Wilbur’s complaint to me that I “excuse” the Iranian government of its excesses while he ignores the similar excesses of Israel and indeed the US itself. I don’t “excuse” anyone. If the Iranians have problems, either that of the economy or their state, it is of their own making in the long run since people get the state they deserve. But in the short run they are still being attacked by the West and the West is thus incorrect as well.
Everyone is responsible for their actions and only responsible for the consequences that they themselves commit by their actions – not the consequences that occur from the actions of others as a response to their actions. But in any event, everyone will have to DEAL with ALL the consequences without exception.
Thus better to not concern oneself about the actions of other people toward other people, but concern oneself with one’s own actions. In the case of the West vs Iran, however, the West’s actions toward Iran are going to negatively affect the bulk of the West’s population – aside from the ruling elites – and thus becomes an issue for that population.
Thus I complain about the West’s actions toward Iran and not Iran’s actions toward its own population, while not condoning the Iranian state or any other state and also not being interested in Iranian society and culture at all.
I’m not a “busy body”… Nor am I a moralist…which is usually the same thing… William S. Burroughs referred to such as people as “Shits”: people who have to be capital-R “Right” and thus make everyone else “Wrong”.
Most of the criticism of Iran comes from such people, not people genuinely concerned about “their fellow man”. As an acquaintance of mine used to say, “‘My fellow man’ is an ass.”
@Wilbur: from their Revolutionary Guards identification cards, we clearly see the Revolutionary Guards emblem which is the hallmark of identification for such hooligans.
Eric,
I share your skepticism pertaining to the video Scott provided. Thus I had my Iranian girlfriend view it and give me her feedback as noted below:
1). It was obvious they are reading from something. While this brings into question the validity of the tape she pointed out taped confessions are a staple of the Middle East. It could be factual or it could be all lies.
2). She indicated due to the accent they are either Kurds or Lurs. It is definitely not an accent from Tehran but this is not surprising considering most of the foot soldiers of the IRGC come from the provinces.
3). Iran has a long history of having their military work with other regional actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Thus finding Iranian military personnel in Syria is highly probable.
4). She pointed out the men have bushy beards indicative of the hard core Quds and Basiji forces. Assad’s troops are mostly secularists who do not have beards. (she originally discounted the video until she noted this.)
In conclusion she said it’s a 50/50 call, but she said the fact they are Iranians begs the question what they were doing in Syria. Not a smoking gun especially with the “staging” but something to keep an eye on.
Thx
Bill
Fiorangela: “you may be interested in Rev Charles Carlson’s explanation of Christian zionism and it roots in the Scofield bible.”
Actually there’s considerably cultural irony in Jews subverting Christianity in this country. Since Paul of Tarsus, who became St. Paul, the founder of Christianity, was a Roman double agent who attempted to subvert the beliefs of the Jews of the time and was kicked out of Jerusalem by Jesus’ own brother and the followers of Jesus for heresy, and who then went to Rome, founded the Christian Church which then subverted and essentially “hijacked” Jesus as their prophet despite Jesus never intending to found any new religion, still less one that would persecute his own people for the next two thousand years…well, you can’t make this stuff up folks.
I’d say the Jews are justified in subverting Christianity to support them.
Of course, all religion is bad news. The real problem here is that a bunch of Zionist Jewish fanatics are subverting a bunch of Christian fanatics to get them to justify genocide on a bunch of Muslim fanatics as a result of the genocide committed by Christian fanatics on a bunch of Jews in the 1940’s. Despite the fact that had it not been for the Roman pagans committing ethnic cleansing on a bunch of Jewish fanatics two thousand years ago, the Hebrew religion probably would have died out as just another cult, and therefore the Roman “Holocaust” was the best thing that ever happened to Jews since it spread them and their religion all over the world.
Which has now turned out to be unfortunate for everyone else.
Not to mention that most of the Jewish fanatics left in Israel eventually became Muslim fanatics – while a bunch of fanatics in Europe converted to become Jewish fanatics centuries ago and then migrated to Palestine to steal the land from the Muslim fanatic descendants of the earlier Jewish fanatics…
It gets confusing, doesn’t it? Except the whole thing is still the biggest joke going in human history.
I agree with the line: “Kill them all. Let their gods sort them out.”
Eric A. Brill says:
January 26, 2012 at 9:29 pm
From Adelson’s lips to Bibi’s ear to New Yorker slicks to NYT’s front page (h/t RichB @ Mondow)
“Adelson is also funding. . . the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, at the . . .Shalem Center, in Jerusalem. Netanyahu allies are on its staff. Natan Sharansky, . . . chairs the Adelson Institute. Sharansky helped organize a “Democracy and Security” conference last June, in Prague, which was attended by President Bush. Iran was a major topic of discussion. A month after the Prague conference, Adelson attended a fund-raising event at the C.A.A. talent agency, in Los Angeles,. . . Pooya Dayanim, a Jewish-Iranian democracy activist based in Los Angeles, chatted with Adelson. Recalling their conversation, Dayanim observed that Adelson was dismissive of Reza Pahlevi, the son of the former Shah, who had participated in the Prague conference, because, Adelson said, “he doesn’t want to attack Iran.” According to Dayanim, Adelson referred to another Iranian dissident at the conference, Amir Abbas Fakhravar, whom he said he would like to support, saying, “I like Fakhravar because he says that, if we attack, the Iranian people will be ecstatic.” Dayanim said that when he disputed that assumption Adelson responded, “I really don’t care what happens to Iran. I am for Israel.”
If Adelson were spending money in Israel only to advance his ideological aims, he might encounter greater resistance from those who think differently. But his philanthropy in the last couple of years—and the promise of much more to come—seems to have given him stature, and a kind of immunity. His close friend Arthur Marshall, a Las Vegas banker, assured me that, as a result of Adelson’s philanthropy, “he may be bigger than the Rothschilds.”
Eric: “‘Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he thinks Iranian citizens will welcome an attack.’ Well, then, that pretty much settles the matter. Who is there left to complain?”
Certainly will be a lot fewer once the bombing’s over… After Netanyahu’s last two escapades, there are a thousand less Palestinians and a thousand less Lebanese to complain. If he could have gotten away with using nukes, it would have been a few million less in each location…
This is why I don’t understand why the world lets this guy Bibi keep breathing… It’s not like it would be hard to waste his ass. He makes Saddam Hussein look like Mr. Greenjeans – if any of you are old enough to remember him…:-)
fyi says: January 26, 2012 at 3:31 pm
fyi, you wrote to James: “yes, it is too bad that you [Iran] are too weak, too disorganized, and too poor to resist defending your country’s neutrality in a war in which you had no stake.
I am sure many Iranians will find quite comforting.”
I am almost sure that you were previously of the view that those whom don’t prepare themselves (the victim) are to be blamed for their un-preparedness.
Am I mistaken in this? Am I misunderstanding the above passage? Or, has your mind changed?
Kooshy: “Clinton Sidesteps Dispute over French Genocide”
Wow. Good catch, Kooshy. A perfect complement to Ahmadinejad’s position. But then, we all know Hillary “Obliterate Iran” Clinton is a genocidal hypocritical beyatch.
Photi: “US Marines piss on those they kill. Does it follow that Americans should overthrow the US government?”
Heh, heh – actually it does… But that’s me…
Iran arrests journalists, to execute bloggers
by Joel Gehrke
Iranian courts have sentenced two bloggers to death for “spreading corruption,” and government security forces have arrested four other journalists, in the lead-up to the nation’s March elections.
“In the past two weeks, security forces have reportedly arrested four journalists,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement, “including Shahram Manouchehri, Sahamedin Bourghani, Parastoo Dokouhaki, and Marzieh Rasouli, and Iranian courts confirmed death sentences for bloggers Saeed Malekpour and Vahid Asghari, both of whom were not accorded due process and now face imminent execution on charges of ’spreading corruption.’”
The State Department faulted Iran for trying “to extinguish all forms of free expression and limit its citizens’ access to information in the lead-up to March parliamentary elections.”
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/iran-arrests-journalists-execute-bloggers/341821
Pirouz,
“The best thing he’s ever done for anybody is ban Reza, so Reza doesn’t waste any more of his time over there. Really, nobody should.”
Thanks, but trust me: I understand. I checked out Scott’s website today, but haven’t looked at it in close to a year before today. He has half a dozen regular posters, none of them worth reading through to the end — the on-line equivalent to what are called “ditto-heads” on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show (listeners who call in, wait on “hold” for hours, and then, when they finally get on the air, say simply “ditto,” meaning they agree with Limbaugh but have nothing to add, and then hang up).
Nevertheless, every once in a while, I wonder whether there might be something worth looking at. Today was such a day. Frankly, I would not mind if I were able to check and learn merely that Scott had overstated a point. Regrettably, I found today that it went well beyond that. The video he cited was exactly what I wrote about it: an insult to his readers.
Iran’s parliament is debating a motion to force the Ahmadinejad administration to cut oil supplies to Europe immediately. I hope that if the threat of doing so does not bring the Poodle to its senses, that Iran cuts off its supply while the cold weather lasts.
Fiorangela says:
January 26, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Bless your precious heart, dear Fior.
I’m sitting here watching Crosstalk on RT. They’re talking about Libya and the travails of patience in waiting for that Fat Lady to exit stage left… The host asked the panel whether these new developments spelled the end to the “right [sic] to protect” [doctrine]. The panelist, rather than catching the host in an apparent Freudian slip (correcting his slip to responsibility to protect), proceeded to repeat the blunder, oblivious to it. I just thought it was interesting to note not just the slip, which made for an interesting enough juxtaposition, but the fact that none of the panelists corrected it and one even repeated it.
Imperialism of course is a “right” in the mind of the imperialist.
pirouz_2 says:
January 26, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Pirouz Jaan
Thank you for your reply and sorry for the delayed response,
To sum up our discussion with regard to Iranian values and what my expectations of it should be, I just like to say that long ago I learned from my own father who was a famous scholar of Iranian studies and perhaps one of the most traveled persons of Iran’s interior, years back he published a two volume edition on his travels inside Iran, he believed and thought me to believe, to be able to live in Iran one needs to (culturally/ Iranian Values) accept Iran as it is and not what it wish it to be. And that’s really where I stand on this subject; however I enjoyed our discussion and always welcome your insertions.
Sincerely
Eric A. Brill says:
January 26, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Eric, you’re wasting your time with that compromised individual. He’s been caught in outright lies, double standards and cases of intellectual dishonesty. Best to just ignore him.
Lesser folks might garner satisfaction from the fact his front of a news site can’t come anywhere close to the draw of this site – RFI, a highly specialized site dedicated to U.S. policy advocacy – so he comes here desperate to draw page views towards his own ailing effort. Speaking for myself, I don’t feel anything. What he is trying to peddle is already in abundant supply in the MSM.
The best thing he’s ever done for anybody is ban Reza, so Reza doesn’t waste any more of his time over there. Really, nobody should.
Castellio, you may be interested in Rev Charles Carlson’s explanation of Christian zionism and it roots in the Scofield bible.
Carlson does a pretty good job; I would put bookends on his chronology–
At the front end:
1. “The Making of the Modern Jewish Bible; How Scholars in Germany, Israel, and America Transformed an Ancient Text” :http://www.amazon.com/Making-Modern-Jewish-Bible-Transformed/dp/1442205164/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327626637&sr=8-1
explains how the bible was recast to make it more adaptable to the political needs of zionism. Further study is required to resolve the speculation that this reworked Jewish bible was the basis for Shaftesbury’s commitment to the return of Jews to Palestine, and Scofield’s bible annotations.
Carlson points out that the annotations were not Scofield’s own composition but were provided to him, and further, that the Scofield bible became the property of the Oxford publishing company in London, which greatly expanded the annotations to the bible in 1967, as the Moral Majority was coming to the fore; as Christian schools were forming in opposition to desegregation of schools; and as Israel entered a new phase of uncontrolled expansionism and settler land theft.
2. In the era when zionism was emerging, the late 1800s, archeologists were just beginning to discover actual evidence that numerous cultures, civilizations and empires pre-dated the Jewish people, and that literature from these cultures pre-figured many of the myths and stories in the Hebrew scripture. It is reasonable to speculate that the Jewish community members perceived a challenge to its very identity and the premier place it had enjoyed as the transmitters of western civilization. Also in this era, biblical literary criticism was reexamining the bible, especially the New Testament, to tease out the Human Jesus — a task Thomas Jefferson had set for himself some thirty years earlier than Europeans in Germany and France.
The back bookend –
1. In the video, Carlson points out that Scofield’s bible placed its emphasis was on interpreting Old Testament concepts, particularly those that politicized Israel.It’s worth observing that the Christian zionist phenomenon took deepest root in the South. As census records bear out, the third largest concentration of Jewish immigrants from Germany, Russia, and Poland from ~1845 to 1890, settled in Charleston, S Carolina, site of slave trade. And, as Leo and Evelyn Turitz describe in “Jews in Early Mississippi,” :http://www.amazon.com/Jews-Early-Mississippi-Leo-Turitz/dp/0878051783/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1327629336&sr=8-4 another large contingent settled in Natchez, Mississippi, center of cotton trade, where Jewish immigrants eagerly saved to buy up land recently claimed from dispossessed Native Americans. The Turitzes emphasize that Jews in the South retained their commitment to study of Bible, which was most likely passed along to household slaves and employees.
2. Finally, to secure Scofield’s bible firmly in place, just last month Amy-Jill Levine published the Jewish Annotated New Testament. :http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Annotated-New-Testament/dp/0195297709/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327628346&sr=8-1 I have not examined the book, but I am acquainted with other of Levine’s projects. Her other writing gives reason to suspect that additional efforts are under way to shape the foundation texts of Christianity to suit zionist purposes. One example of this subtle agenda is Levine’s undermining of the belief in the origin and character of the “Three Wise Men,” the Magi. Many Christians understand the Magi to be Persian. Levine recasts them as fools, clowns, and “not at all wise, since they told Herod they were seeking a newborn king,” a foolish thing to do since no king would welcome a potential challenger to his power, Levine claims. Thus one more aspect of Christian belief is eroded, weakening the Christian community.
It is a little-known fact that in 1948, as Jewish zionist fighters overwhelmed Palestinian Arabs and dispossessed them of their homes, they also stole their libraries. By some estimates, zionists removed 30,000 books from captured Palestinian schools and home libraries. Hannah Mermelstein explains the situation, and she begins by quoting David Neressian –
Cultural genocide extends beyond attacks upon the physical and/or biological elements of a group and seeks to eliminate its wider institutions… Elements of cultural genocide are manifested when artistic, literary, and cultural activities are restricted or outlawed and when national treasures, libraries, archives, museums, artifacts, and art galleries are destroyed or confiscated.
:http://www.jerusalemquarterly.org/ViewArticle.aspx?id=386
American Christian culture is also being eradicated by zionism, more subtly, but also more perniciously, as zionists maneuver, bribe, and delude Americans and Christians into subverting and destroying their own “artistic, literary, and cultural activities.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/world/middleeast/israelis-see-irans-threats-of-retaliation-as-bluff.html
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he thinks Iranian citizens will welcome an attack.”
Well, then, that pretty much settles the matter. Who is there left to complain?
About the economy: Iranian income from oil exports will be around $100 billion in 2012 (in the year the European poodle stopped barking and landed a tiny bite on the Lion’s mane). Our non-oil exports will be in the neighborhood of an incredible $50 billion (yes, that’s billion with a b), thanks to the indefatigable Ahmadinejad and his team. (It is projected to be around $45 billion in fiscal 1390, which ends on March 2012). With the free trade zone with Syria recently signed into law (thanks to Turkey’s blunder there = I guess they missed the Caution: Boa Constrictor at Work sign), that figure might well top $50 billion.
So we have $150 billion at 2012. What was that figure in 2002, a decade earlier during the reign of Khatami, the darling of the Greens? Or two decades earlier in 1992, during the laissez faire capitalist Rafsanjani? Thanks to oil being in the range of $20 to $40. barrel and a non-oil export figure of basically zero, our figure of $150 billion shrinks to $30 billion. For two decades, we not only survived, but thrived on that level of hard currency income. During those two decades a massive amount of work was done and a historically unprecedented amount of capital and human resources were invested in civil infrastructure, industry, and most importantly, education (especially at the higher, post-graduate level). Those investments are now paying dividends. Even if we were not able to find alternative buyers for the 15% of our oil exports that the EU market represents (which, we will), that would not even be a dent on this juggernaut and power-train which is the Iranian economy.
Idiots like Scotty Boy who see a two-day spike in the price of the dollar in the extremely small cash foreign exchange market (how much cash can you actually stuff in the kiosks and booths around Ferdowsi Circus anyway?…) and mistake it as representative of the entire economy betray the fact that their ideological aspirations have gotten the better of what little empirical data they have at the disposal of their neanderthal cortex.
Pirouz 2/ fyi:
If I may interject… The problem isn’t the issue of minority rights so much as how the issue is framed in the West. As usual, the West, the child of that stale neo-pagan movement modestly called the Enlightenment by its proponents, makes the error of universalizing its own conditions, and thereby imposing its own criteria and values on other societies.
Once it is pointed out that societies have differing cohesion coefficients, that more traditional societies are more cohesive, and that modern societies are more fragmented and atomized, then it becomes obvious that applying one yardstick to both is a gross error. The error becomes all the more egregious when it is carried out systematically by and on behalf of an imperialist dynamic.
The motility (leeway) of a minority of 20% in a highly unitary and cohesive traditional society might be comparable in some ways to that of a minority of 2% in a culturally de-centralized, fragmented society. To expect the criteria to be teh same is a gross failure to recognize basic sociological metrics, not to mention being arrogant and autocratic.
But this problem of comparative sociology is deeper even than that. What fyi (and all the other bastard child’s of the Enlightenment with its universalizing obsession) are doing of course is comparing apples to oranges. A traditional society such as Iran’s, which displays characteristics of a nation which is culturally integral and cohesive, is a nation-state, properly so called. But when that degree of cohesion is diminished to the point that obtains in the US, for example, where we have a loss of system integrity, then that nation-state is no longer a nation at all, but merely a state. Just as Saudi Arabia, for example, is comprised of 4 nations in one state, or Iraq is really 3 nations in one state (and these are highly significant indicators for system stability and integrity), the lack of cultural cohesiveness and cultural atomization of a given society is similarly an indication of its very nationhood.
So here we have a ‘nation’ which has strayed into the abyss of cultural relativism to the point that anything goes (‘Nothing is Sacred’ as the motto of The Republic of Bezerkeley’s iranian.com motto goes), saying to a culture and nation: why don’t you let loose? It’s like a drug addict trying to push the drug of modernity without constraint on non-addicts, as if it is a winter wonderland, which of course it is not. Misery enjoys company, I guess. Problem is, we’ve been there and done that.
My advice to fyi is to put up his copy of Queen’s ‘Fat Bottom Girls’ (with the ‘Bicycle’ B-side) on eBay while there are still customers lapping that shit up.
Professor Scott-
Here is one your bosses lecturing the Hypocrisy 201, just compere her answer to the question on Armenian genocide with president Ahmadinejad’s two questions regarding Holocaust which is why is forbidden to research and question the holocaust by scholars?
“Clinton Sidesteps Dispute over French Genocide”
By DESMOND BUTLER Associated Press
WASHINGTON January 27, 2012 (AP)
“Clinton said the administration was wary of compromising free speech. She said the issue was best left for scholars.”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/clinton-sidesteps-dispute-french-genocide-law-15450534
Chutzpah – EU slaps new sanctions on Iran
Zionist Occupied EU governments announced new unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic in a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers on January 23. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, David Cameron, Stephen Harper, Ehud Barak and Shimon hailed EU’s decision. Tehran, Moscow and Beijing criticized the decision as “unconstructive”.
Iran’s oil export earning was $70 billion in 2011 – and is expected to go as high as $100 billion this year. The International Minetary Fund (IMF) has warned that new sanction will cause the global oil price to rise by 20-30 percent……..
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/chutzpah-eu-slaps-new-sanctions-on-iran/
Sassan says:
January 26, 2012 at 2:39 am
Sassan,
US Marines piss on those they kill. Does it follow that Americans should overthrow the US government?
I wonder if Prof. Scott is talking about these “Iranian soldiers”!!!
PRESSTV
Iran condemns Syria pilgrims abduction
Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:41PM GMT
“Earlier on the day, a group of unknown gunmen attacked an Iranian bus on the road from the Syrian capital Damascus to the northwestern city of Aleppo, abducting 11 Iranian men. The assailants drove off to an unknown destination afterwards, leaving the female passengers in the vehicle. ”
As a person of integrity one would have to find it disgraceful that such a consequential charge can be leveled agains an entire government on the basis of the level of evidence presented.
At salon.com today, Justin Elliott has interesting pi8ece: “What the Adelsons will want for their money”.
“The $10 million in pro-Newt money that transformed the GOP primary appears to be all about US policy toward Israel.”
January 26, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Thanks to Leveretts, our Professor is simply exercising his freedom of immersion without being subject to any monitoring like we all have here on RFI, but if this was on his own site EA, posting comments are subject to his monitoring and if he decides favorably and let them pass, they get to be posted.
Isn’t that a fact professor Scott? This subject is currently lectured under Hypocrisy 101 by the professor, with Pak2 acting as the TA.
Scott:
With all due respect, Scott, have you actually watched this video? Frankly, I doubt that very much, and I will feel even more insulted to learn that you have.
I just spent 6 minutes and 21 seconds of my life watching it, and the last 4 or 5 minutes was nothing but some guy flipping through blank pages in some Iranian passports. Even the earlier “good part” was nothing but a bunch of Iranian guys sitting on some concrete floor with a white wall behind them. It appeared that these young Iranian guys did not like the Iranian government very much. They said they were in Syria, but who knows where that concrete floor and white wall really were? Tehran? London? Chicago? Your guess is as good as mine (frankly, I suspect my guess is a little better than yours, Scott, but I’m being charitable here).
I’m as gullible as the next guy, Scott, but please, please don’t tell me you really expect people with triple-digit IQs to believe the “confessions” of these “Iranian soldiers” sitting on a concrete floor in front of a white wall in “Syria:”
“My name is Sajjad (Haider Ali) Aminan and I am a member of the revolutionary armed forces of Iran. I am leader of a five-member special team. I entered Syria on October 16, 2011..…We have killed many civilians in the city of Homs, including many women and children. …We have a request from Sayyed Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran….”
Seriously, Scott – is it asking too much just to upgrade the quality when you wander over here? You’re not preaching to the choir here as you are on your own echo-chamber website. You insult our intelligence, and even your own, when you post garbage like this.
R S Hack,
Surely Sassan is aware that Reza Khalili appeared before Winep, the Aipac offshoot that lobbies nonstop for ways amd means to hurt Iran and “benefit” Israel. Winep promotes endless war, and supports ethnic cleasing by Israel in the West Bank.
If Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination for the presidency, perhaps more attention will be paid by US news media to some curious beliefs held by the Mormons?
Writing in The Times (London) Jan. 10th, Ben Macintyre noted that many Americans question some of the beliefs of the Mormon church, “including the belief that God lives on a planet called Kolob and that humans can become gods of their own planets.”
Eric,
With the IAEA having headquarters in Vienna, and offices at the UN in New York and in Geneva, one easily gets the idea the IAEA is under the UN umbrella.
kooshy,
I think Harry Truman did not object to the nationalisation of Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. by Mossadegh. After Eishenhower came in, the British were able to convince him Mossadegh would let the Communists in.
kooshy,
I like Richard Falk, but we should remember that the Clinton administration wanted to restore relations with Iran, but Bill Clinton buckled under pressure from the ISRAEL LOBBY.
Scott Lucas says:
January 26, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Professor Scott, let’s assume this video’s scenario is correct, so what, aren’t the war criminal US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Libya, Etc.
Why would you think is a bad act for Iran to protect her allies and her strategic interests, but all the same is good and you expect to be done by this country (US).
I am sorry Scott but truly you are a warmonger who fears a titanic geopolitical shift. My advice is that you and your financial supporters may need to live up to accepting the unraveling fact so you can get a better sleep (considering the current UK time).
Some doctors recommend a good sleep therapy is to make a wish for tomorrow before going to bed. This supposedly would make it easier to sleep, when thinking of wishes rather than thinking of tasks and plans which they think is more agitating. I am just trying to help and hope it works.
does Reza Khalili still wear the modified Groucho Marx glasses with a tent over his noxe, and use a voice modulator so that he doesn’t sound too much like Moustache Bolton?
neocon world is pulling out all the stops. the whiff of desperation signals great danger.
Stay safe Iran.
A very well drafted article by Mr. Falk, very much worth reading
Richard Falk
Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/201212485135149579.html
“If the United States is to be credible about its preference for a diplomatic solution it must move at long last to accept the verdict of history in Iran that the revolution was a setback for Western strategic ambitions in the country and the region, but not an occasion for permanent estrangement.
So far, the United States has shown no willingness despite the passage of more than 30 years to accept the outcome of Iran’s popular revolution of 1978-79 that non-violently overthrew the oppressive regime of the Shah, and this must change if there is to be any hope for peaceful conflict resolution. We need also to remember, as certainly the Iranians do, that the Shah was returned to power in 1953 thanks to the CIA in a coup against the constitutional and democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq, whose main “crime” in Washington’s eyes was to nationalise the Iranian oil industry. This intervention produced intense resentment among many Iranians that reached its climax with the seizure of the American embassy in November of 1979, holding its staff, including the ambassador, hostage for more than one year, and was renewed by Pentagon encouragement given to Saddam Hussein’s aggression against Iran in 1980 that cost both sides in the war an estimated half million lives.”
He’s got that exactly right.
US seeks vassals not allies: Putin
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/223150.html
Scott Lucas “Syria Video Special: Free Syrian Army Captures Iranian Soldiers”
I call BS. Not to mention that you’re a complete idiot.
Not to mention that the “Free Syrian Army” is widely recognized to be a gang of mercenaries from Libya. Most of the real Syrian dissidents consider them to be a major problem.
Also tonight….
Syria Video Special: Free Syrian Army Captures Iranian Soldiers
[Video: ,http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hlgPMlklJSU]
This video may the the smoking gun. According to activists, these soldiers are Iranian, they had been cooperating the the Syrian security forces, and they have been captured by the Free Syrian Army.
The full transcript, provided by EA Correspondent Josh Shahryar….
0:49 – 0:57 My name is Sajjad (Haider Ali) Aminan and I am a member of the revolutionary armed forces of Iran. I am leader of a five-member
0:57 – 1:04 special team. I entered Syria on October 16, 2011. The others entered Syria on different dates.
1:04 – 1:13 (What are your names?) Ahmad Aziz Askari. Hasan Hasani. Majid Qanbari. Kyumars Qobadi.
1:13 – 1:26 My team and I entered Syria and supported the security intelligence forces of Syria in suppressing and shooting civilians.
1:26 – 1:39 After we were done with our daily activities, we would return from our ‘jobs’ to where we used to live.
1:39 – 1:48 We have killed many civilians in the city of Homs, including many women and children. We received our
1:48 – 1:59 orders directly from the airforce intelligence forces of the city of Homs. We have a request from
1:59 – 2:05 Sayyed Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to take action in bringing back all
2:05 – 2:15 the Islamic republic forces who are in Syria and supporting the suppression of the Syrian people so we
2:15 could also come back to our homes.
,http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/26/syria-video-special-free-syrian-army-captures-iranian-soldie.html
James,
“Eric, Reuters calls the IAEA “the UN’s nuclear watchdog”. Incorrect? Isn’t it under the UN umbrella?”
James,
My whole point is that it is NOT under the “UN umbrella?” The UN has no authority over the IAEA, period. Never has. It’s not really disputable, even though every major (and minor) news organization in the world seems to ignore it.
Latest from Iran — 26 January:
2109 GMT: An EA Special — The Syrian Front. Some context for the claimed footage, posted on EA tonight of five Iranian soldiers who were captured by the Free Syrian Army while operating inside the country.
Hours before the footage was posted, Press TV reported, “A group of armed militants have attacked an Iranian bus on the road connecting the capital, Damascus, to the northwestern city of Aleppo.”
Press TV said 11 male “pilgrims” were kidnapped and taken to an unknown destination, leaving behind the women.
The website further says, “The gunmen contacted the relatives of a kidnapped passenger in Tehran, confirming the abduction of the Iranian nationals and demanding a ransom.”
No direct connection has subsequently been made to the claimed video.
2105 GMT: An EA Special. EA’s Josh Shahryar has provided English subtitles to a video, in Farsi, that reportedly shows Iranian soldiers inside Syria who have been captured by the Free Syrian Army. Shahryar says that he is certain, based on their accents, that these men are Iranian.
,http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/26/the-latest-from-iran-26-january-tehran-issues-an-oil-warning.html
James,
“Andrew Buncombe in the Independent today quotes India’s oil minister as saying various means of paying for Iranian oil are being explored.”
Absolutely. The proposal earlier this month was that India would pay for oil in rupees. The problem for Tehran is that rupees are not convertible internationally, so Iran could not spend its revenue outside India without further complications.
So Iranian officials proposed part-payment in Japanese yen. Indian and Iranian officials met last week, but did not resolve the issue.
Best,
S.
Sassan: You really are a complete fucking idiot.
Here’s the story from the Washington Post:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/07/reza_kahlili_self-proclaimed_ex-cia_spy_makes_new_iran_claims.html
“Reza Kahlili,” self-proclaimed ex-CIA spy, makes new Iran claims
By Jeff Stein
Reza Kahlili, a self-proclaimed former CIA “double agent” inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, appeared in disguise at a Washington think tank Friday claiming that Iran has developed weapons-grade uranium and missiles ready to carry nuclear warheads.
The pseudonymous Kahlili, whose previous accounts have been greeted with widespread skepticism, also said Iran was planning nuclear suicide bombings with “a thousand suitcase bombs spread around Europe and the U.S.”
Scott Lucas: “do you have link for news that India will pay in gold for Iranian oil?”
We’re your researchers now? Do you know how to Google?
For all your unimportant posts about how bad the Iranian economy is doing – done solely to bash Iran, of course, despite the utter irrelevancy to the geopolitical crisis (oh, and to get people from here to waste time on your Web site to increase your hit count – you can’t seem to find any article which display how US sanctions are failing?
Fuck off.
Kathleen says:
Zbig is going to be on the Diane Rehm show in 5 minutes talking about his new book “Strategic Vision”
he was also on charlie rose last night.. as one of obama’s original handlers, one has to wonder, why he is making the rounds?
http://www.charlierose.com/
“Will Israel Attack Iran?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/magazine/will-israel-attack-iran.html?ref=middleeast&pagewanted=all
QUOTE FROM ARTICLE:
It is, of course, important for [Moshe Ya’alon, Israel's deputy prime minister] to argue that this is not just an Israeli-Iranian dispute, but a threat to America’s well-being. “… It is not for nothing that [Iran is] creating links with drug dealers on the U.S.-Mexican border. … Imagine this regime getting nuclear weapons to the U.S.-Mexico border and managing to smuggle it into Texas, for example. This is not a far-fetched scenario.”
END OF QUOTE FROM ARTICLE.
High-ranking government officials toss out such a scenario in conversations with other grown-ups, have the audacity to insist that the scenario is “not far-fetched,” and then are actually taken seriously by those other grown-ups?
No wonder this situation is getting out of hand.
The interim Libyan government is being accused of widespread torture in the aftermath of the ouster of former leader Muammar Gaddafi. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said investigators had uncovered scores of cases of abuse in Libyan prisons.
;;http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/26/headlines#6
How ironic the same HR representative, Navi Pillary, who became the instrument of the empire of disease, once said;
“”The crackdown in Libya of peaceful demonstrations is escalating alarmingly with reported mass killings, arbitrary arrests, detention and torture of protestors,” Pillay told the UN’s top human rights body. “
Of course given such propaganda pressure, one can imagine how these fools become sell-outs.
“it’s high time for the high commissioner to prove that accountability begins at home.
Let’s put aside that in the past three years, United Nations headquarters in New York opened every golden door to the terrorist from Tripoli.
Never mind that the Gaddafi regime was granted membership on the elite UN Security Council, that its envoy was made president of the UN General Assembly or that the dictator’s daughter, Aisha, was named a UN “goodwill ambassador”.”
;;http://www.sajewishreport.co.za/pdf/2011/mar/11-march-2011.pdf
one can imagine who actually was behind getting MQ in UN.
what these miss-guided sell-outs seem to fail to understand is, they too some day will face the choir, just like sadam or MQ. Both these fools too danced for the pleasure of the empire, just like Pillary is.
When you become a tool of the empire of disease, you too are and eventually will be held accountable to those crimes against humanity which you have and are promoting Mrs Pillary.
James Canning says: January 26, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Yes, Mr. Canning – on the one side you worry about the Palestinians and on the other, with reference with the Rape of Iran you state: “Portugal made a large profit from its neutrality during the Second World War. It is too bad Iran could not have done the same thing.”
yes, it is too bad that you are too weak, too disorganized, and too poor to resist defending your country’s neutrality in a war in which you had no stake.
I am sure many Iranians will find quite comforting.
pirouz_2 says: January 26, 2012 at 2:59 pm
The late Shah of Iran did not harass women who were wearing hejab.
He might have been many things but he certainly was not that foolish.
You may find my statement contemptible but the fact remains that no one could discuss Islam, Sharia, and the Quran in any Muslim state without fearing death.
Last year, the Governer of Punjab was assasinated by his own boady guard because he had the courage to comment on the foolish blasphemy law in Pakistan.
A certain Ibn Waraq, sought refuge in Europe for otherwise he most likely would have been murdered for his investigations into the Quran.
And in Iran, only in Tehran you can work as a Philosopher and nowhere else in that country.
And yes, Muslim women should not be permitted to ride bikes because there are other Muslim women who earn a living weaving carpets. The logic of this, I am afraid, beyond my understanding.
There something about bikes and women that bothers Muslims which riding donekys, horses, mules, or automobiles do not.
You are not stupid Mr. Pirouze_2 and you have to undertand and accept that people have intrinsic God-given rights that no majority can take away from them; least of alll the pharisee Muslim who have killed – over the centuries – the Joy of Islam.
You have heard this now again on this forum – you have no excuse.
fyi,
I think most historians would agree the Ottoman Empire was defeated in the First World War.
If you assume Turkey would have lost its Arab provinces anyway, then perhaps the loss of them as a result of the war is less important, in your view?
Allies in the Second World War obviously did not want to fight Turkey if there was no need to do so. Turkey on its own accord intervened in the First World War on the side of Germany and Austria.
Portugal made a large profit from its neutrality during the Second World War. It is too bad Iran could not have done the same thing.
Adolf Hitler’s drive to dominate Europe owed very little to religion.
James Canning says:
“Price of gold coins dropped 20% yesterday in Iran after bank interest rate was raised to 21%, and the rial went up 7%.”
============================
oh dear.. I think our know-it-all professor just lost his behind in his investment over at the hasbara bank.
Photi,
I too look forward to a restoration of normal relations between Iran and the US.
I think the fee is 40 euros for small-boat smugglers operating between Oman and Iran. (Charged by the Revolutionary Guard)
Eric,
Reuters calls the IAEA “the UN’s nuclear watchdog”. Incorrect? Isn’t it under the UN umbrella?
Price of gold coins dropped 20% yesterday in Iran after bank interest rate was raised to 21%, and the rial went up 7%.
Scott,
andrew Buncombe in the Independent today quotes India’s oil minister as saying various means of paying for Iranian oil are being explored.
FYI;
I am very glad that you say this at this point, because I think many people misunderstand me and think that I get into self-contradiction.
“Yes. Mr. pirouz_2: the majority Muslims have been destroying those of superior minds and delicacy of feelings for centuries under the guise of Islamic Orthodoxy.
It really is a form of egalitarian envy for one’s betters in sensitivity and in the intellect.”
This is the type of contemptible comment that I have always been disgusted with. Saying that intelligentsia are almost always a minority in their society and that this does not ‘discredit’ them has absolutely nothing to do with the disgusting proposition that an elite is “superior” to the vast masses (in rights and entitlements)and therefore is entitled to rule them like a shepperd who rules his flock of sheep and exploits and eats them. That is a proposition which comes only from fascist dictators (the type who fall in the same category as Pinochet and Franco) who actually prosecute intelligentsia and exploit the vast masses of people like a herd of sheep.
Just to clarify my point further, I would like to draw people’s attention to the fact that at the time of Shah a minority forced its own dress code over the vast majority. Also it is a well known fact that today in the West the majority forces its own cultural values down over the head of the minority immigrants (the very well known concept of Islamophobia) all in the name of “feminism” and “liberal democracy”. It is an outrageous example of hypocrisy to call Iran as a religious dictatorship for enforcing the dress code of the majority over the minority, and then call West’s identical behaviour as “liberal democracy”.
One of the most contemptible behaviours is to defened ones parasitic interests in exploiting the vast majority of the society as “feminism” and “freedom for women”, to try to sell the rights (!!) of middle class to raise and walk poodle dogs as “human rights” when a great number of people in those very same cities probably spend the same amount of money on their basic needs as the elite spends on its poodle dog!! It is a disgusting example of hypocrisy to try to sell wealthy women’s right (!!) to ride bikes in Tehran’s streets as the “women’s rights” when 3,000,000 carpet weaving women’s need for insurance is NOT considered as a “right” but rather is look down at in contempt and considered as “egalitarian envy”!
you’re in the wrong sandbox, Sassan; you should be wastin’ away in cottage cheeseville with the other hasbarists-in-training.
What a surprising response from such an in-touch journalist such as yourself, Scott; “not relevant.”
Benjamin Netanyahu apparently thinks its very relevant, or do you think Netanyahu a mere fool and demagogue with no apprehension of the events between 1931-1939 that resulted in war and the holocaust of his people? Should we not take seriously this constellation of parallels:
-that the leader of the Jewish people thinks his people are under threat from the re-incarnation of Nazi Germany;
-that, as in the earlier period, the closest friends of the Jewish people, then Great Britain, Germany, and the US; now, the US, are experiencing severe financial strains that may topple their economies, and the root of the problem is the persistence of the US dollar as the world’s exchange currency;
-that, as in the earlier period, the status of the US dollar (GB pound) as exchange currency is threatened by the feared state, then, Germany, now, Iran;
My question to you and your enlightening and informative website was, Compare and contrast . . .” That gives you latitude to explain WHY the historical events are irrelevant to present events.
Two more hours.
Surely you can dash off 400 or 500 words from the topic that you “know well” to bring the rest of us up to speed.
Best
F
Nima Shirazi has a great write up on When Brainwashing Backfires:
Military indoctrination at Nazi death camps stokes…universal democratic values!
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2012/01/when-brainwashing-backfires-military.html
lololol @ Reza Kahlili being “MKO”. That’s a first. Do you guys on here just spout any nonsense that pops in your head without any sort of factual reality?
Sassan,
Is this the same Reza K. that claims to have worked for the IRGC? The same one that in reality was an MKO terrorist?
Ex-CIA spy: Iran’s miscalculation over war
Leading Iranians are criticizing the regime, including its war-like provocation and the foreign sanctions aimed at its nuclear program. One Revolutionary Guard commander calls Iran’s war threats ‘the same stupidity’ and miscalculation that preceded the Iran-Iraq war.
By Reza Kahlili / January 26, 2012
Iran’s religious and military leaders are making a major miscalculation in their confrontation with the United States that could destroy Iran and the current regime.
By refusing to address the concerns of the international community over its nuclear program, and by threatening to close the critical maritime Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is playing with fire.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama again said that he will “take no options off the table” in stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, while Israeli officials have stated the same, meaning a military strike is possible.
The American media are full of commentary warning against a military conflict – provoked by Iran blocking the strait or by crossing a nuclear red line. Now significant figures in Iran are sounding the same alarm, worried that the leaders of the Islamic regime do not understand the realities of such conflict.
If only Tehran would take these warnings seriously.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who recently ordered the armed forces of the regime to prepare for war, is adamant about obtaining nuclear weapons – although Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful energy use only.
Khamenei and the clerical establishment believe nuclear weapons are part of their mission to glorify Islam. This horrifies some within the Iranian military who fear doom as tension grows between the West and Iran over its suspected nuclear-bomb program.
Sources within Iran indicate that the Iranian people, fearing a destructive war, are stocking up on necessities while voicing their concerns. Shockingly, some senior Revolutionary Guard commanders who fought during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s are now speaking out against the direction of the current leadership. They risk their lives in doing so.
Former senior Revolutionary Guard commander Hossein Alaei, in a recent op-ed in a state-owned newspaper, openly criticized the Islamic leadership for suppressing the people and not allowing criticism of the supreme leader. He came immediately under attack by Mr. Khamenei’s supporters, the piece was pulled from the paper’s website, and radicals attacked his home.
Another long-time ally of the regime, Asadollah Asgar-Oladi, a wealthy businessman, recently warned the country’s leadership in a state-owned newspaper that if international sanctions are not removed, Iran could face serious inflation and shortages in six months.
Most revealing, though, is the warning of one Revolutionary Guard commander, in an anonymous letter to the opposition group Green Experts of Iran. The letter, posted on the group’s web site, says that the current commanders of the various armed forces appointed by Khamenei are delusional about their capabilities and have no clue as to the consequences of a war with America.
The dissident commander cites a disastrous miscalculation made by religious and military leaders leading to the Iran-Iraq War. Revealing the cause of the war, the commander says that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein repeatedly demanded of the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad that Iran recognize Iraq’s sovereignty and cease encouraging the Iraqi Army to revolt against Iraqi leadership.
Iranian leaders dismissed these warnings as mere psychological warfare and continued to openly berate the Mr. Hussein despite reports from Iranian intelligence and friendly countries that Iran was miscalculating Hussein’s power. The denial of the possibility of a real war led the leaders to mislead their own people.
At the time, I was serving in the Revolutionary Guard but as a CIA spy. I saw firsthand how the faithful were incited to believe that victory over Iraq was a given and that the destruction of Israel would be next. I saw up close how children as young as 10 to 12 years old were given machine guns and sent to the front.
Like the founder of the regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, today’s Ayatollah Khamenei believes that Allah is on his side and final victory over the nonbelievers is just a matter of time.
More than half a million Iranians lost their lives in the Iran-Iraq War, millions had to leave their homes, and the cost of the destruction was in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Many within Iran now believe that a conflict with America would have a much more devastating effect.
“Now, as a full-fledged commander with several honors during the [Iran-Iraq] war, which for security reasons I cannot divulge,” the dissident commander tells Green Experts, “I perceive the comments made by the high-ranking commanders of the Iranian military, especially regarding the issues surrounding the threat of blocking the Hormuz Strait and prohibiting American and NATO fleets from entering, [as] exactly the same stupidity that lingers from the period just before the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War. I envision the US invasion of Iraq, and it makes me shudder.”
The commander cites another appalling miscalculation of the Iran-Iraq War: the decision to send two Iranian gunboats against US warships in the Persian Gulf that were there to keep oil flowing. The Iranian speedboats fired on a helicopter from the USS Vincennes, putting the ship’s captain on heightened alert. When an Iran Air civilian plane later took off for Dubai, the Vincennes mistook it for an Iranian warplane and shot it down, killing all 290 aboard.
The commander warns the Iranian leadership that a war with the United States is not like a war with an Arab nation – Iraq: “You will not survive…”
Osama bin Laden in his miscalculation caused the death of nearly 3,000 innocent Americans and foreigners on 9/11, believing Islam was calling on him to glorify Allah. What transpired afterward changed the world, causing more death and destruction.
Similarly, Khamenei is misjudging. If he stubbornly plows ahead with the development of nuclear weapons, Iran will suffer severe consequences, and millions of lives could well be lost.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the author of the award winning book, “A Time to Betray.” He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the US Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0126/Ex-CIA-spy-Iran-s-miscalculation-over-war
nahid says: January 26, 2012 at 1:22 pm
very true.
http://www.goftamgoft.com/?Pn=view&id=995
agha zadeh agha zadeh hastesh
pirouz_2 says: January 26, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Yes. Mr. pirouz_2: the majority Muslims have been destroying those of superior minds and delicacy of feelings for centuries under the guise of Islamic Orthodoxy.
It really is a form of egalitarian envy for one’s betters in sensitivity and in the intellect.
And of couse, they arrogate to themselves God’s perogative as to who is and is not a (good/bad/indifferent) Muslim.
It is indicative of internal spiritual weakness and uncertainity.
How Iran could beat up on America’s superior military
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / January 26, 2012
“The entire [IRGC] structure – if you look at how air defense is organized, the land forces, the combination of the Basij [militia] and the [IRGC] – this is all geared toward what they call the Mosaic Strategy, where you have individual military units who have a great deal of independence to decide what they can do without referring back to the center,” says the former European diplomat.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/0126/How-Iran-could-beat-up-on-America-s-superior-military
Kooshy jan;
In your earlier message you referred to a book called “the little black fish”, the same author also has a book called “24 restless hours”, also there are quite a few stories by Gholam Hossein Saedi (and many other authors) included “The cow”, “the cycle” and many many more which exactly talk about the income disparity and the awful life of the people who lived in the city slums (and also in the rural areas) at the time of Shah.
In fact to the best of my knowledge one of the greatest problems created by the “white revolution” was that a huge flow of dispossesed peasents flocked the urban centres and the urban industry was very far from being able to absorb the huge flock of people from rural areas who came to the cities in search of work and found none. The fact that there may have been foreign ‘workers’ employed in Iran (in that era) really does not contradict what I say; if I remember it correctly those Filipinos were in Iran for domestic help in the ultra rich households. In USA there are many illegal workers but that neither means that unemployment has not risen nor does it mean that poverty is on the rise.
I don’t know if you ever visited the southern parts of Tehran at the time of shah or not, but the sheer misery of the city slums were appalling. The many many short stories with social themes just a few of which I mentioned earlier and all of which resulting in the arrest and prosecution of the author are all depicting those conditions.
Up to this point I never gave any numbers, so let me give a few statistical numbers to make my point clearer. Unfortunately I read the stuff that I got my data from some time ago and right now I am not sure about the exact numbers but if I remember it correctly, around 1974-77, the poverty line of $2 in urban areas was some where around 25% and this number in rural areas became an astonishing 66%!! Even more significant in determining the causes for social unrest is perhaps the income distribution and income inequality. The GINI index of household expenditures in 1977 (if I remember it correctly) in urban areas was a staggering 0.5 (or maybe slightly above that?) and this became even higher by 1979 (again if I remember it correctly).
“Well the majority says like we discussed before “Hijab’ is an Islamic value that majority requires to keep so is public drinking of alcohol which a tiny minority like the Armenians like to publicly do but they can’t because the majority 98% don’t approve of it.”
I agree that the majority in Iran, is relatively more conservative than I am. But first of all conservative dress code does not necessarily mean “hijab” a la Islamic Republic! I come from a rural family and eventhough I was born and raised in Tehran we used to go to visit our relatives in the village very often. I can tell you that their dress code was very different from the “official hijab” after the revolution. Yes they were conservative in their dressing but it was not the dress code which became enforced by the state after the revolution.
Secondly, my preferred dress code does not belong to that small a minority. Anybody who has been to major cities in Iran (esp. Tehran) can see that with his own eyes that a significant portion of the women (a minority nontheless I agree) do not observe the proper official dress code. One look at them is enough to see that they have been forced to even cover up as much as they do.
Now who says that the majority has a right to dictate its dress code on a minority? And what evidence is there that the mjority of Iranians even care what the women in the Tehran wear? Personally I think that for a person to be so much obssessed about what some one else is wearing he or she must be deeply deeply disturbed!! If we approve such an enforcement of dress codes by the majority to a minority, then how can we disapprove of the islamophobic behaviour of some of the Western states which ban Hijab? By the way, the real reasons about why the state went after enforcing its own official dress code is beyond the subject of our discussion, so I don’t want to get into that subject but maybe some other time we can talk about that?
A very similar argument can be made for alcoholic drinks. In fact I am very surprised that you say the wish to be able to drink freely is restricted to Armenians. I have seen people who both pray and also drink alcohol!! (don’t ask me about the rationality of that behaviour, it beats the hell out of me).
“At end I can say that in Iranians mind the importance of Imam Hessian and Ferdosi are not separated but it rather forever is joined which this is the essence that has made this country to stand to this day.”
Well that was sort of my point, what makes me and the like of me “less Iranian”?? Just because I am a minority?? If we go by that Ferdowsi was a minority at his own time, does that mean that he should be discredited or not considered as Iranian?
There is a story that says Nasser Khosrow (who lived a great deal of his life as a fugitive) was running from village to village trying to hide his identity and avoid prosecution. He arrives in a village with a torn shoe. So he goes to a shoe maker to get him to repare his shoe before he continues on. As the shoe maker starts to work on his shoe, N.Khosrow hears a noise from the street and when he looks he sees that people are lynching a man by beating and dragging him on the streets in the most inhumane way. He askes the shoe maker: “what the hell is going on? What is that man guilty of?” and the shoe maker answers back: “The people figured that he was a follower of that ‘rafezi’ called Nasser Khosrow, so they are lynching him!”
Fearing for his life N. Khosrow says:” Give me back my shoe, I can’t stay even for a shoe repair in a village where that rafezi’s name is even mentioned!!” He gets back his torn shoe and starts running out of village as fast as he could.
Now are we to say that N. Khosrow was not Iranian and discredit him?
Scott Lucas says: January 26, 2012 at 12:34 pm
One could only hope that Iranians immediately cut-off oil to EU states.
Latest from Iran — 26 January:
1727 GMT: Oil Warning. Back to our opening item of the day — Ali Akbar Velayati, former Foreign Minister and senior adviser to the Supreme Leader, has responded to the prospect of further sanctions, “In the absence of Iranian supply, oil prices will go up and they (the Western states) know it. However, Iran will never allow itself to be in a situation in which it cannot sell oil but other regional states can.”
Strong words, but they still do not answer our question this morning: Will Tehran cut off oil to Europe immediately, rather than waiting for the European Union to arrange alternative supplies before its suspension of Iranian imports takes effect on 1 July?
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/26/the-latest-from-iran-26-january-tehran-issues-an-oil-warning.html
Rehmat,
Thank you — do you have link for news that India will pay in gold for Iranian oil?
S.
Kathleen says:
January 26, 2012 at 10:59 am
Thanks for the heads up for the interview. I loved the part where Zbig says he has written his name as “Osama bin Laden” in the visitors register and still the security guards direct him to the elevators.
I really think the economy, and foreign policy have become the least of our problems. We are running a high fever caused by a national disease: fear, fright, and a pathological sense of insecurity.
Fyi said it best. “pay close attention to your jingoistic proto-fascist yahoos lest they take over the Government of the United States and crash and burn it like the Fascisti in Italy.”
Lobby: ‘Turks need to understand ‘Shoah’
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/lobby-turks-need-to-understand-shoah/
Scott Lucas – Iran-Pakistan is more important for energy starving Pakistan than Islamic Republic which will be paying for the construction of pipeline. India has already told the US and EU to get lost for their new sanctions. India has decided to continue buying $12 billion oil import from Iran by paying with gold. Tehran sells oil to Pakistan on below world price.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/us-threatens-pakistan-over-iran-pakistan-gas-pipeline/
Latest from Iran — 26 January….
1419 GMT: Energy Watch. The Pakistan Foreign Ministry has said a proposed pipeline between Pakistan and Iran is not subject to international sanctions.
Spokesman Abdul Basit said, “Pakistan is committed to the Pak-Iran gas pipeline and sanctions do not cover this project.”
Basit asserted that Islamabad has repeatedly said that the nuclear issue of Iran should be resolved peacefully through negotiations and dialogue in the international community.
1414 GMT: Elections Watch. The first list of pro-Ahmadinejad candidates in March’s Parliamentary elections has been published by the Islamic Academic Society. Most of those named are members of the Islamic Constancy Front, led by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/26/the-latest-from-iran-26-january-tehran-issues-an-oil-warning.html
Oops posted this over at Mondoweiss also. Mention RACE FOR IRAN. ASK DIANE TO HAVE THE LEVERETTS ON HER PROGRAM ABOUT IRAN
Zbig is going to be on the Diane Rehm show in 5 minutes talking about his new book “Strategic Vision”
Have heard several interviews with him on Morning Joe and he is going to be on Cspans book Tv this Saturday. The book is focused on educating the American people about foreign policy based on accurate information. The possibility of Israel dragging the US into a military confrontation with Iran etc etc.
Hope folks call , email, facebook questions about the US’s support for Israel no matter what they do and how this effects our relationship with other nations in that region..etc. Also bring up how Israel is trying to drag the US into a military confronation with Iran etc et
Know everyone here can come up with relevant questions. Give it a try. Hundreds of thousands of people listen to that program. 1-800-433-8850 drshow@wamu.org. They love first time callers, emailers. You could even mention MONDOWEISS and the discussions etc going on here.
Clues…get your plug in first. RACE FOR IRAN…. Mondoweiss
Throw out a piece of info about the issue that you think will be beneficial to the audience expanding their knowledge base. Ask a relevant question of the guest.
Sassan says:
January 25, 2012 at 7:18 pm
“These are the Revolutionary Guards themselves. It did surprise me that the Revolutionary Guards started to show splinters among themselves but it does not surprise me they are not arrested as they are the one’s who are part of the security apparatus that run the country.”
This what you guys are all about, imagining “cracks and fissures” in the Islamic Republic so that you can move in to make those cracks bigger with the intent to destroy Iran. This is not rational and is indeed murderous.
A rational person looking at these events should conclude that ‘diversity of opinion’ is alive and well in the Islamic Republic of Iran and that now as always Iranians need to ensure their criticism is made with the intent of strengthening the national order. As an American citizen impressioned with principles of liberty and justice, I salute the Iranians and the Islamic Republic in their efforts to bring into existence their own rightful independence.
I await the day diplomacy is established between our two great nations.
No need to state the source of this quotation, since I could pick from dozens of others on almost any day to make my point:
“A senior U.N. nuclear agency team is expected to visit Tehran on Saturday, the first such mission since a report in November…”
No UN inspectors will be going to Tehran, nor has this even been suggested.
The “team” will be from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The distinction is important, even if routinely overlooked. The IAEA is not merely a step-and-fetch-it subsidiary of the UN Security Council, as most people in the world nevertheless appear to believe. It is an entirely separate international body over which the UN has no authority whatsoever.
The UN Security Council has exclusive authority to enforce relevant provisions of the UN Charter; the IAEA has none at all. Conversely, the IAEA has exclusive authority to to enforce Iran’s Safeguards Agreement under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; the UN has none at all. The IAEA Statute and other international statutes do call for information-sharing between the two groups, and several forms of voluntary cooperation. At times, moreover, each of the two bodies may claim at the same time that a country is violating a rule or agreement within that body’s exclusive jurisdiction. That is alleged for Iran today, for example. Even when that is the case, however, neither body has any right to exercise any of the other body’s powers, nor any right to require the other body to take any action – other than to report certain information so that the other body so can decide independently whether (or not) to exercise its exclusive authority.
The drafters of the Security Council sanctions against Iran made an impressive effort to fudge this important distinction between the IAEA and the UN, and appear to have persuaded nearly everyone that the IAEA is nothing more than a UN agency that takes orders from the Security Council. The distinction nevertheless remains, and that is why no UN inspectors will be going to Iran.
Latest from Iran — 26 January….
1354 GMT: Currency Watch. In another move by the Government to get control of the currency situation, the head of the Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, has announced a single exchange rate of 12260:1 between the Iranian Rial and the US $, to come into effect from Sunday.
Bahmani warned that currency exchanges can only sell dollars in a band 3 to 5% above the rate; otherwise, they will lose their trading permits.
Currently, Iran has five different exchange rates, from the Central Bank’s official rate of just over 11300:1 to the “unofficial” open-market rate of 17000:1.
Khabar Online is reporting that the Iranian Rial is trading at 17300:1 vs. the US dollar, a further strengthening of 10% from the “official” open-market rate of 19000:1 posted on Wednesday.
Mesghal has brought the rate down to 17000:1.
Etedaal reports the dollar is still at 19000:1 and foreign exchange traders are refusing to sell it at the Central Bank’s “ordered” open-market rate of 14000:1
1251 GMT: All-Is-Well Alert. Leading politician and cleric Ali Fallahian has explained that no money has been lost in the $2.6 billion bank fraud, that public discussion of the luxury in which officials live is forbidden, and that the Islamic Republic is the most popular system in the world.
1244 GMT: Currency Watch. An EA source gives us the first indication that the Government’s economic moves yesterday may be giving a significant boost to the Iranian currency: “A street currency dealer gave me a price of 1800 Toman (18000 Rials) to the dollar this morning….This might indicate that Ahmadinejad’s upping of the interest rate has had an effect.”
http://www.eaworldview.com/home/2012/1/26/the-latest-from-iran-26-january-tehran-issues-an-oil-warning.html
Scott Lucas says:
January 26, 2012 at 9:32 am
Oh go on please do sure your knowledge about this with us and maybe then I may visit your site.
Anyway what are you doing running a website called ENDuring America when you are in Birmingham, England??? Shouldn’t it be ENDduring England/UK? (maybe then Mr Canning may visit you aswell!)
Prat.
All:
A US View
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/24/supremely_irrelevant?page=0,1
All:
An Israeli view:
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/crushing-the-radical-axis-6410
All:
There will be no war.
Chinese are putting pressure on Iran to be a bit less belligerent.
They do not want a war during which Iran may be crushed by US-EU Axis; causing them to be at the mercy of Axis Powers for a substantial part of their energy needs.
Americans do not want a war and I suspect that they have finally grasped that leaving their confrontation with Iran at the current level gives their strategic competitors the ability to force them back into the Middle East – where they are currently contained.
All in all, an interesting exercise in the Game of Nations.
the outcome: US will be out of the Middle East.
Scott Lucas says: January 26, 2012 at 9:49 am
I think this demonstrates the reliance of world financial transactions on US-EU financial structures.
Clearly, there is now an impetus to create or seek alternative mechanisms that avoids those institutions.
I think the US-EU are repeating the same mistake here as when they damaged CWT and NPT against Iran.
James Canning says: January 25, 2012 at 5:50 pm
In regards to your various one-liners.
WWII was a war among mostly Christian states (some in their post-Christian phase) pursuing non-Christian Utopian projects.
They fought on Muslim lands because they could; local Muslim princes and potentates were to weak, too ignorant, or to stupid to do anything else.
Turkey had already defeated the Allies during WWI, they were not going to fight Turks again; as I am sure you are familiar with Galipoli.
The outcome of WWII was irrelevant to iran since it would only serve to replace one set of Christian Masters of the World with another set – which is what happened.
When elephants fight, grass suffers.
When elephants copulate, grass suffers.
So the lesson is to endeavor to avoid being grass or becoming grass.
Iranians have understood that.
As I have repeatedly explained to you, the ability to field nuclear weapons is a matter of survival for the Iranian state.
[You may disagree, but then you are protected by the Americans' nuclear weapons.]
The Axis Powers, Russian, and Chinese position is no enrichment on the Iranian soil.
No responsible government in Iran will ever agree to that.
If that is the P5+1 ultimate desire, they might as well create a 1,000,000 force under UN and go to war and permanently occupy Iran.
And 20% is only a tactical issue.
The strategic decision was made in 2007; when the path of confrontation with Iran was selected.
Now we are reaching the Cul de Sac of that policy, for all sides.
Mr. larijani, in fact, had predicted that in 2006.
The allies of Iran are all those people who suffered and died under the various dispensations in the area between Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean Sea: Hazara, Tadjiks of Afghanistan, Armenians, Shia of Iraq, Shia of lebanon, Druze of Syria, Alawites, Kurds of Iraq.
These people are not going to let their lives be destroyed because of US, EU, or Saudi Arbia’s Said-So.
And once again, US-EU, Saudi Arabia will fail to realize their aims here no matter how much money they throw at it since they stand for Death and Destruction – they have no positive program.
Fiorangela,
“Perhaps as a service to your readers you could brush up on the eruptions and dislocations that occur when a large chunk of the world stops using one form of currency for trade and starts using another currency for trade. Explain the monetary implications and compare and contrast the fall of the florin, the collapse of the gold standard in 1931 and its role in war in Germany, and the economic crisis of the United States and Europe today, assessing whether Iran is the scapegoat du jour that shall be looted to bail out profligate western entities.”
Fascinating subject — I know it well. But it’s not relevant to the topic of what is currently happening in Iran….
S.
Russia backs Turkey’s initiative to host next round of “Iran-Six” talks
http://en.trend.az/news/nuclearp/1984138.html
Obama is Making Ordinary Iranians Suffer So He Can Get Reelected
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2012/01/25/obama-is-making-ordinary-iranians-suffer-so-he-can-get-reelected/
Syrian Snapshot I: A View From the Capital
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syrian-snapshot-i-view-capital
Quotes
Later that day I met with the first person on my list of regime opponents, most of whom had served prison terms at some point in their lives. I will write in more detail about these men and women later, but they varied from those who desired an overhaul of the regime while keeping Assad’s presidency intact, to those who would not consider dialogue with any part of the existing government. There were some commonalities. All rejected any foreign military intervention and the militarization of the protests. The majority were scathing about the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and external opposition groups like the Syrian National Council (SNC), so liberally quoted by the Western media as the definitive voice of the Syrian “opposition.”
“Their decisions are made in America and Turkey,” said one regime critic about the foreign-based Syrian opposition. “I want decisions made in Syria.”
Another one parried: “The external opposition are not an effective part of the opposition. They don’t participate in any political parties here. We want to change the system in a safe way – we don’t want to pay a higher price than necessary. We want national cohesion, we don’t want a collapse of the economy and we don’t want to lose our sovereignty.”
Most of these domestic-based opposition figures I met were disparaging about international sanctions too: “Life is very expensive for the Syrian people now and [the sanctions] will take the country into a vicious cycle of poverty and violence and harm the democratic transition,” says Louay Hussein, leader of the Building the Syrian State movement, who spent seven years in prison during his 20s.
“Sanctions will not affect the authorities, but will affect the people,” claims retired political economist Aref Dalila, an organizer of the 2000-1 Damascus Spring (a period of unusual political and social openness in Syria immediately following Hafez Assad’s death) who was released from a seven-year prison term in 2008. “People are already paying a high cost – prices have risen dramatically, factories have shut down, imports have decreased by around half and unemployment has risen, especially in the tourism sector.”
I went to the square with low expectations. News reports in the West rarely cover pro-regime gatherings, and almost always suggest that participants are forced to attend, are engaging out of fear, or are bused in by the government – sometimes even paid to join the throngs.
I only managed to reach the square after the president’s departure, when many had already departed, and some were still trickling out of the square. Still, crowds lingered to chant pro-Assad songs, dance the traditional “dabke” and wave flags – including Hezbollah ones to mark support for the Resistance. They were women and men, young and old, religious and secular, soldiers and civilians, well-heeled and not – certainly, none looked “forced” to participate in the gathering.
By comparison, take a look at this YouTube video of the same square ostensibly filmed during Assad’s speech. The square looks almost empty and it appears his voice has been added into the footage, suggesting a low turnout even at the rally’s peak. I didn’t get to the square until after Assad’s departure, but even then, you can see the stark difference in crowd size between the two video clips – a testament to the ferocity of the media battle for narratives over Syria these days.
End Quotes
Iran’s Ahmadinejad ups rates to stem money crisis
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/wl_nm/us_iran_economy_rates
Even without Hormuz blockade, Iran has options
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/wl_nm/us_iran
Unfortunately, most of them listed are likely to raise tensions and lead directly to war…
I would hope Iran avoids pointless provocations which can easily be pointed at by the war mongers to justify war. There are more subtle ways to retaliate.